Laravel newbie and external (Moodle) database - mysql

Question

I'm trying to read from external Moodle database in Laravel Eloquent, to display all users that are teachers, and put them into a dropdown list inside a form.
I have Teacher model containing:
class Teacher extends Eloquent
{
protected $guarded = ['id'];
protected $connection = 'moodle';
protected $table = 'mooddle_user';
public function Task()
{
return $this->hasMany('Task', 'id');
}
}
I can return all users just simply by using lists method, but the problem is that the info whether the user is indeed a teacher or not is not stored in this table. Instead I have to use a few JOIN commands to retrieve teachers.
I'm wondering how can I execute this command inside the model, to use it simply in the dropdown of the Task view. Task model, accepts teacher_id - foreign key.
SQL:
SELECT DISTINCT u.firstname, u.lastname
FROM moddle_user u
JOIN moddle_user_enrolments ue ON ue.userid = u.id
JOIN moddle_enrol e ON e.id = ue.enrolid
JOIN moddle_role_assignments ra ON ra.userid = u.id
JOIN moddle_role r ON r.id = ra.roleid AND r.shortname = 'editingteacher'
WHERE e.status = 0 AND u.suspended = 0 AND u.deleted = 0
AND (ue.timeend = 0 OR ue.timeend > NOW()) AND ue.status = 0
I tried running it as Raw query through model but no luck, because it locks inside a moddle_user data table and so I am unable to use JOIN with other tables.
I know I could've tried to create 4 additional eloquent models, but since I only need this one query to return all teachers, there could be another way around this.
Any idea and suggestion greatly appreciated =).

Answer 1

So i've found out there is thing called DB::connection that you use before the methods like select, statement etc.
For other newbs like me, I share the solution for top example:
$teachers2 = DB::connection('moodle')->select(DB::raw("SELECT DISTINCT u.firstname, u.lastname
FROM mdl_user u
JOIN mdl_user_enrolments ue ON ue.userid = u.id
JOIN mdl_enrol e ON e.id = ue.enrolid
JOIN mdl_role_assignments ra ON ra.userid = u.id
JOIN mdl_role r ON r.id = ra.roleid AND r.shortname = 'editingteacher'
WHERE e.status = 0 AND u.suspended = 0 AND u.deleted = 0
AND (ue.timeend = 0 OR ue.timeend > NOW()) AND ue.status = 0"));
Now if only was there a way to use the result as a whole model (I only need teachers, never whole users).
Edit:
I've fixed the whole problem elegantly by using global scopes "http://laravel.com/docs/4.2/eloquent#global-scopes". This way my model always works on array of teachers.
Regarding those question marks it just means that there will be a value presented when Laravel runs it.