How to get distinct values for non-key column fields in Laravel?

Question

This might be quite easy but have no idea how to.

I have a table that can have repeated values for a particular non-key column field. How do I write a SQL query usin

Answer 1

I had the same issues when trying to populate a list of all the unique threads a user had with other users. This did the trick for me

Message::where('from_user', $user->id)
        ->select(['from_user', 'to_user'])
        ->selectRaw('MAX(created_at) AS last_date')
        ->groupBy(['from_user', 'to_user'])
        ->orderBy('last_date', 'DESC')
        ->get()