====== Collections ====== **Introduction** The Illuminate\Support\Collection class provides a fluent, convenient wrapper for working with arrays of data. For example, check out the following code. We'll use the collect helper to create a new collection instance from the array, run the strtoupper function on each element, and then remove all empty elements: $collection = collect(['taylor', 'abigail', null])->map(function ($name) { return strtoupper($name); })->reject(function ($name) { return empty($name); }); As you can see, the Collection class allows you to chain its methods to perform fluent mapping and reducing of the underlying array. In general, collections are immutable, meaning every Collection method returns an entirely new Collection instance. **Creating Collections** As mentioned above, the collect helper returns a new Illuminate\Support\Collection instance for the given array. So, creating a collection is as simple as: $collection = collect([1, 2, 3]); **Extending Collections** Collections are "macroable", which allows you to add additional methods to the Collection class at run time. The Illuminate\Support\Collection class' macro method accepts a closure that will be executed when your macro is called. The macro closure may access the collection's other methods via $this, just as if it were a real method of the collection class. For example, the following code adds a toUpper method to the Collection class: use Illuminate\Support\Collection; use Illuminate\Support\Str; Collection::macro('toUpper', function () { return $this->map(function ($value) { return Str::upper($value); }); }); $collection = collect(['first', 'second']); $upper = $collection->toUpper(); // ['FIRST', 'SECOND'] Typically, you should declare collection macros in the boot method of a service provider. **Macro Arguments** If necessary, you may define macros that accept additional arguments: use Illuminate\Support\Collection; use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Lang; use Illuminate\Support\Str; Collection::macro('toLocale', function ($locale) { return $this->map(function ($value) use ($locale) { return Lang::get($value, $locale); }); }); $collection = collect(['first', 'second']); $translated = $collection->toLocale('es'); **Available Methods** For the majority of the remaining collection documentation, we'll discuss each method available on the Collection class. Remember, all of these methods may be chained to fluently manipulate the underlying array. Furthermore, almost every method returns a new Collection instance, allowing you to preserve the original copy of the collection when necessary: all average avg chunk chunkWhile collapse collect combine concat contains containsStrict count countBy crossJoin dd diff diffAssoc diffKeys dump duplicates duplicatesStrict each eachSpread every except filter first firstWhere flatMap flatten flip forget forPage get groupBy has implode intersect intersectByKeys isEmpty isNotEmpty join keyBy keys last macro make map mapInto mapSpread mapToGroups mapWithKeys max median merge mergeRecursive min mode nth only pad partition pipe pipeInto pluck pop prepend pull push put random reduce reject replace replaceRecursive reverse search shift shuffle skip skipUntil skipWhile slice some sort sortBy sortByDesc sortDesc sortKeys sortKeysDesc splice split splitIn sum take takeUntil takeWhile tap times toArray toJson transform union unique uniqueStrict unless unlessEmpty unlessNotEmpty unwrap values when whenEmpty whenNotEmpty where whereStrict whereBetween whereIn whereInStrict whereInstanceOf whereNotBetween whereNotIn whereNotInStrict whereNotNull whereNull wrap zip