Why can't you just use ->exists() instead of count?

Why can't you just use ->exists() instead of count?

That will have the same problem, it will return whether result contains any rows, but not whether it has more than 1 row. Assuming you mean this:

$hasAtLeastTwoArticles = $user->articles()->limit(2)->exists()

Chatgpt suggests using skip which skips the first row and checks if the second exists (I haven't tested though):

YourModel::skip(1)->exists();

Chatgpt suggests using skip which skips the first row and checks if the second exists (I haven't tested though):

YourModel::skip(1)->exists();

Good point, that should work for the second example.

The problem here is that you need sub-queries to properly scope the count/exists methods:

$isInTop3 = User::query()
    ->whereIn('id', User::select('id')->orderByDesc('score')->limit(3))
    ->whereKey($userId)
    ->exists();

The problem here is that you need sub-queries to properly scope the count/exists methods:

Yes. I know, and that's the point of this issue. Both solutions are not obvious, and the lint suggestion makes it seem like you can just skip the ->get() call to fix it, which is wrong. In the second case, it's arguably not even better solution, though that's debatable.

Well what do you think should be done then? I'm not sure how well we'd be able to detect that you're trying to skirt around not using a subquery and an error shouldn't be raised. I don't think it's as simple as just detecting if limit/take was called earlier in the chain...

the lint suggestion makes it seem like you can just skip the ->get() call to fix it, which is wrong.

The error message never says to just remove the ->get() call---it just means there are better ways to accomplish what you are trying to do inside the database instead of needing to hydrate eloquent models just to count them in php land. Sure, removing the ->get() is often the only thing that needs to be done to convert the collection call to a query, but it's not always the case.

If you find yourself repeating this pattern around your codebase then that could be a great candidate for a scope or Builder macro.

You can always locally ignore that error or just disable the rule altogether if you like:

parameters:
    noUnnecessaryCollectionCall: false

Hi,

As you described the error is technically correct. So if you feel like it is a false positive, feel free to ignore the error. Rule itself can't detect each edge case.

Thank you!