How to exclude certains columns while using eloquent

Question

When I'm using eloquent, I can use the "where" method then the method 'get' to fill an object containing what I've selected in my database. I mean:

$users = User::where('gender', 'M')->where('is_active', 1)->get(['pseudo', 'email', 'age', 'created_at'])->toArray();

Here I can choose the columns I want to get like 'pseudo', 'email', etc.. But what I miss in laravel doc is the way to do the contrary. It could be something like that:

$users = User::where('gender', 'M')->where('is_active', 1)->notGet(['pseudo', 'email', 'age', 'created_at'])->toArray();

Thank you for you futur answer and have a nice day.

Answer 1

If you only need to hide attributes from your model's array or JSON representation, you may use one or both approaches:

• Add the $hidden property to your model

  class User extends Model
  {
      /**
       * The attributes that should be hidden for arrays.
       */
       protected $hidden = ['password'];
  }
  

• Use the makeHidden function

  $users = $users->makeHidden(['address', 'phone_number']);
  

See other answers for more details... But sometimes you don't want to load huge data (geospatial, html, logs...) into your application, it will be slow and take more memory. OP asked for an SQL query hence my answer, but most of the time it's more convenient to only hide the data from the JSON response.

---

AFAIK there is no build in option in SQL to exclude columns explicitly, so Laravel can't do it. But you can try this trick

Update

Another trick is to specify all columns in your model (or use an extra query to get all columns using $this->getTableColumns() from this answer, it can also be cached after each migration to avoid two queries) then add a local scope function

// The below code requires you to define all columns in $columns.
// A better approach is to query the schema of the table and cache it after each  
// migration, for more details: https://stackoverflow.com/a/56425794/3192276

protected $columns = ['id','pseudo','email'];

public function scopeExclude($query, $value = []) 
{
    return $query->select(array_diff($this->columns, (array) $value));
}

Then you can do :

$users = User::where('gender', 'M')
    ->where('is_active', 1)
    ->exclude(['pseudo', 'email', 'age', 'created_at'])
    ->toArray();

Answer 2

using hidden array in model is good, but if you don't want to hide your column all the time and use makeVisible to access them in need, then instead, hide your column from serialization where you need with makeHidden function like this :

$res = Model::where('your query')->get();
$res->makeHidden(['column_one','column_two','column_n']);
return response()->json($res);

Answer 3

I don't know about previous Laravel version, but in 5.4 you can put this line in User model

protected $hidden = ['pseudo', 'email', 'age', 'created_at'];

and then User::find(1); will return all fields except pseudo, email, age, and created_at.

But you still can retrieve those hidden fields by using:

$user = User::find(1);
$email = $user['email']; // or $user->email;

Answer 4

I have looked into the answer by @Razor

But there is Very Conveinent way by skipping $columns property

 /**
 * Scope a query to only exclude specific Columns.
 *
 * @author Manojkiran.A <manojkiran10031998@gmail.com>
 * @param  \Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Builder $query
 * @return \Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Builder
 */
public function scopeExclude($query, ...$columns)
{
    if ($columns !== []) {
        if (count($columns) !== count($columns, COUNT_RECURSIVE)) {
            $columns = iterator_to_array(new \RecursiveIteratorIterator(new \RecursiveArrayIterator($columns)));
        }

        return $query->select(array_diff($this->getTableColumns(), $columns));
    }
    return $query;
}

/**
 * Shows All the columns of the Corresponding Table of Model
 *
 * @author Manojkiran.A <manojkiran10031998@gmail.com>
 * If You need to get all the Columns of the Model Table.
 * Useful while including the columns in search
 * @return array
 **/
public function getTableColumns()
{
    return \Illuminate\Support\Facades\Cache::rememberForever('MigrMod:'.filemtime(database_path('migrations')).':'.$this->getTable(), function () {
        return $this->getConnection()->getSchemaBuilder()->getColumnListing($this->getTable()); 
    });
}

getTableColumns function will get all the columns of the table so you dont need to define the $column property

NOTE: COLUMN NAMES OF TABLE WILL BE CACHED UNTIL CONTENTS OF MIGRATIONS DIRECTORY IS ADDED OR DELETED.

MODIFYING THE CONTENTS OF FILES INSIDE THE MIGRATIONS DIRECTORY WILL NOT RE-CACHE THE COLUMNS

To clear cache manually you can run php artisan cache:clear

Answer 5

you can use hidden array like this:

class Promotion extends Model
{
    protected $table = 'promotion';
    protected $hidden = array('id');
}

Answer 6

I have a solution that worked for me, which is slightly different than those already stated.

Solution:

$all_columns = Schema::getColumnListing('TABLE_NAME');
$exclude_columns = ['COLUMN_TO_EXCLUDE_1', 'COLUMN_TO_EXCLUDE_2'];
$get_columns = array_diff($all_columns, $exclude_columns);

return User::select($get_columns)->get();

Reasoning:

For me:

1. Razor's answer didn't work as I got the following error:

BadMethodCallException with message 'Call to undefined method App/CaseStudy::exclude()'

2. Then, the remaining answers were attemping to hide the columns within the model. Unfortunately, that would hide them for each method in my class and this isn't something that I wanted.

So, in the end, I modified Razor's solution so that it would work without having to hide any of the columns for each method.

I hope this helps someone! 😊

Answer 7

We get the object eloquent from the model full with all fields, transform it to array and we put it inside of a collection. Than we get all fields except all fields specified in array $fields.

$fields = ['a', 'b', 'c', 'N'];
$object = Model::find($id);
return collect($object->toArray())->except($fields);

More clearly, let's give an example:

// Array of fields you want to remove
$fields_to_remove = ['age', 'birthday', 'address'];

// Get the result of database
$user = User::find($id);

// Transform user object to array
$user = $user->toArray();

// Create a collection with the user inside
$collection = collect($user);

// Get all fields of our collection except these fields we don't want
$result = $collection->except($fields_to_remove);

// Return
return $result;

This example above makes exactly the same thing of the first one, but it's more explained.

Answer 8

you can use makeHidden array like this: (After get() or all())

$users = User::where('gender', 'M')->where('is_active', 1)->get()->makeHidden(['pseudo', 'email', 'age', 'created_at'])->toArray();

Answer 9

You can leverage Illuminate\Support\Facades\Schema::getColumnListing('table_name');

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Schema;

$users_table_columns = Schema::getColumnListing('users');

$exclude_columns = [
 'password',
 'token',
 'address',
];
        
$select = array_diff($users_table_columns, (array) $exclude_columns);

$site = User::select($select)
 ->where('gender', 'M')
 ->where('is_active', 1)
 ->first();

Answer 10

I wrapped a slitly changed approach from @manojkiran-a up in a small package, cause I needed it in multiple projects:

https://github.com/laracraft-tech/laravel-useful-additions/#selectallbut

Install via composer:

composer require laracraft-tech/laravel-useful-additions

This is how it is working:

use LaracraftTech\LaravelUsefulAdditions\Traits\UsefulScopes;

$class = new class extends Model
{
    use UsefulScopes;

    protected $timestamps = false;
    protected $table = 'scope_tests';
};

$class->create([
    'foo' => 'foo',
    'bar' => 'bar',
    'quz' => 'quz',
]);

$class::query()->selectAllBut(['foo'])->first()->toArray();
// return ['bar' => 'bar', 'quz' => 'quz']

Note: Since you can't do a native "select all but x,y,z" in mysql, we need to query (and cache) the existing columns of the table, and then exclude the given columns which should be ignored (not selected) from the existing columns.

Cache: Column names of each table will be cached until contents of migrations directory is added or deleted. Modifying the contents of files inside the migrations directory will not re-cache the columns. Consider to clear the cache whenever you make a new deployment/migration!

Answer 11

You can use unset unset($category->created_at,$category->updated_at);

$fcategory = array();
$kCategory = KCategory::where("enabled", true)->get();
foreach ($kCategory as $category) {
    $subkCategory = PostCategory::select("id", "name", "desc")
        ->where("id_kcategory", $category->id)
        ->where("enabled", true)
        ->get();

    unset($category->created_at, $category->updated_at);

    $fcategory[] = $category;
}