Laravel Fluent Query Builder Join with subquery

Question

Okay after hours of research and still using DB::select I have to ask this question. Because I am about to trough my computer away ;).

I want to get the last input o

Answer 1

I was looking for a solution to quite a related problem: finding the newest records per group which is a specialization of a typical greatest-n-per-group with N = 1.

The solution involves the problem you are dealing with here (i.e., how to build the query in Eloquent) so I am posting it as it might be helpful for others. It demonstrates a cleaner way of sub-query construction using powerful Eloquent fluent interface with multiple join columns and where condition inside joined sub-select.

In my example I want to fetch the newest DNS scan results (table scan_dns) per group identified by watch_id. I build the sub-query separately.

The SQL I want Eloquent to generate:

SELECT * FROM `scan_dns` AS `s`
INNER JOIN (
  SELECT x.watch_id, MAX(x.last_scan_at) as last_scan
  FROM `scan_dns` AS `x`
  WHERE `x`.`watch_id` IN (1,2,3,4,5,42)
  GROUP BY `x`.`watch_id`) AS ss
ON `s`.`watch_id` = `ss`.`watch_id` AND `s`.`last_scan_at` = `ss`.`last_scan`

I did it in the following way:

// table name of the model
$dnsTable = (new DnsResult())->getTable();

// groups to select in sub-query
$ids = collect([1,2,3,4,5,42]);

// sub-select to be joined on
$subq = DnsResult::query()
    ->select('x.watch_id')
    ->selectRaw('MAX(x.last_scan_at) as last_scan')
    ->from($dnsTable . ' AS x')
    ->whereIn('x.watch_id', $ids)
    ->groupBy('x.watch_id');
$qqSql = $subq->toSql();  // compiles to SQL

// the main query
$q = DnsResult::query()
    ->from($dnsTable . ' AS s')
    ->join(
        DB::raw('(' . $qqSql. ') AS ss'),
        function(JoinClause $join) use ($subq) {
            $join->on('s.watch_id', '=', 'ss.watch_id')
                 ->on('s.last_scan_at', '=', 'ss.last_scan')
                 ->addBinding($subq->getBindings());  
                 // bindings for sub-query WHERE added
        });

$results = $q->get();

UPDATE:

Since Laravel 5.6.17 the sub-query joins were added so there is a native way to build the query.

$latestPosts = DB::table('posts')
                   ->select('user_id', DB::raw('MAX(created_at) as last_post_created_at'))
                   ->where('is_published', true)
                   ->groupBy('user_id');

$users = DB::table('users')
        ->joinSub($latestPosts, 'latest_posts', function ($join) {
            $join->on('users.id', '=', 'latest_posts.user_id');
        })->get();