Laravel Collection – Filtering Collection Items using where()

Laravel Collection provides the ability to filter a collection’s items by using a key value pair by using where() method. The where() method will check if the $key has some value equal to the provided $value. Also you can provide an extra argument $operator parameter to control the comparison of the $key and $value. The where() method return a new collection instance containing all the items which satisfy the given criteria.

Signature

The signature of where() method in the Illuminate/Support/Collection class looks something like below.

/**
 * Filter items by the given key value pair.
 *
 * @param  string  $key
 * @param  mixed  $operator
 * @param  mixed  $value
 * @return static
 */
public function where($key, $operator = null, $value = null)
{
    ...
}

Laravel Collection Example

Let’s use the where method to filter out our below collection.

// Create a new collection
$collection = collect([
    [
        'name'      =>  'Luke Thomas',
        'job'       =>  'Marketing Manager',
        'salary'    =>  8000
    ],
    [
        'name'      =>  'Liam Coleman',
        'job'       =>  'Web Manager',
        'salary'    =>  7500
    ],
    [
        'name'      =>  'Jacob Hill',
        'job'       =>  'Web Developer',
        'salary'    =>  6500
    ],
    [
        'name'      =>  'Charles Brown',
        'job'       =>  'Web Developer',
        'salary'    =>  5000
    ],
    [
        'name'      =>  'Richard Wilson',
        'job'       =>  'Web Developer',
        'salary'    =>  5400
    ],
    [
        'name'      =>  'Isaac Kelly',
        'job'       =>  'Graphics Designer',
        'salary'    =>  6000
    ]
]);

For example, we want to extract all employees having a salary of over $6000. We can use the where() method to filter our records like below.

$filteredCollection = $collection->where('salary', '>', 6000);
dd($filteredCollection);

The above statement will return the response to something like below.

Collection {#668 ▼
  #items: array:3 [▼
    0 => array:3 [▼
      "name" => "Luke Thomas"
      "job" => "Marketing Manager"
      "salary" => 8000
    ]
    1 => array:3 [▼
      "name" => "Liam Coleman"
      "job" => "Web Manager"
      "salary" => 7500
    ]
    2 => array:3 [▼
      "name" => "Jacob Hill"
      "job" => "Web Developer"
      "salary" => 6500
    ]
  ]
}

Now we will filter all records from our original collection $collection to list all employees with the job title as a web developer.

$filteredCollection = $collection->where('job', 'Web Developer');
dd($filteredCollection);

You will be presented with something like the below output.

Collection {#668 ▼
  #items: array:3 [▼
    2 => array:3 [▼
      "name" => "Jacob Hill"
      "job" => "Web Developer"
      "salary" => 6500
    ]
    3 => array:3 [▼
      "name" => "Charles Brown"
      "job" => "Web Developer"
      "salary" => 5000
    ]
    4 => array:3 [▼
      "name" => "Richard Wilson"
      "job" => "Web Developer"
      "salary" => 5400
    ]
  ]
}

You might have noticed that in the previous examples we provided the three arguments $key, $operator and $value. But later on we just supplied the $key and $value.

If you don’t provide any $operator Laravel will set the operator to =.

The where() method support the following operators.

Operator	Description
==	Ensures equality between the check $value and the key value on the collection item. This operator does not compare the types of the values.
=	Same behavior as ==.
===	Ensures equality between the check $value and the key value on the collection item. This operator does compare the types of the values.
<>	Ensures inequality between the check $value and they key value on the collection item. This operator does not compare the types of the values.
!==	Ensures inequality between the check $value and the key value on the collection item. This operator does compare the types of the values.
<	Ensures that the key value on the collection item is less than the supplied check $value.
>	Ensures that the key value on the collection item is greater than the supplied check $value.
<=	Ensures that the key value on the collection item is less than or equal to the supplied check $value.
>=	Ensures that the key value on the collection item is greater than or equal to the supplied check $value.

Final Words

Laravel collection’s where() method is very powerful to filter down a large collection of data. Laravel also provides the where method in the Eloquent which filters down the records from the database, this method works exactly the same as the Eloquent one.