php 39 lines · 9 steps

Eager loading without N+1 in Laravel

A Laravel controller fetches posts with curated relations, counts, and conditional filters in a single efficient query batch.

Explained by highlit
Laravel Intermediate eager-loading n+1 query-builder pagination relations
1class PostController extends Controller
2{
3 public function index(Request $request)
4 {
5 $posts = Post::query()
6 ->with([
7 'author:id,name,avatar_url',
8 'category:id,name,slug',
9 'tags:id,name',
10 'comments' => fn ($query) => $query
11 ->approved()
12 ->latest()
13 ->limit(5),
14 'comments.author:id,name',
15 ])
16 ->withCount(['comments', 'likes'])
17 ->when($request->filled('category'), function ($query) use ($request) {
18 $query->whereHas('category', fn ($q) => $q->where('slug', $request->category));
19 })
20 ->published()
21 ->latest('published_at')
22 ->paginate(15)
23 ->withQueryString();
24 
25 return PostResource::collection($posts);
26 }
27 
28 public function show(Post $post)
29 {
30 $post->load([
31 'author.profile',
32 'category.parent',
33 'comments' => fn ($query) => $query->approved()->with('author:id,name')->latest(),
34 'media',
35 ])->loadCount('likes');
36 
37 return new PostResource($post);
38 }
39}
01 / 01
STEP 01

Walkthrough

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Three takeaways
  1. 1Eager loading related models with `with` collapses what would be many lazy queries into a handful of batched ones.
  2. 2Selecting specific columns and constraining nested relations keeps payloads lean and queries fast.
  3. 3`when` lets you bolt conditional filters onto a query chain without breaking it into branching if statements.

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