Retrieve Distinct Field Values

You can retrieve distinct field values of documents in a collection by calling the distinct() method on an object collection or a query builder.

To retrieve distinct field values, pass a query filter to the where() method and a field name to the select() method. Then, call distinct() to return the unique values of the selected field in documents that match the query filter.

Tip

For more information about query filters, see the Retrieve Documents that Match a Query section of the Read Operations guide.

Example

Select from the following Eloquent and Query Builder tabs to view usage examples for the same operation that use each corresponding query syntax:

This example performs the following actions:

Uses the Movie Eloquent model to represent the movies collection in the sample_mflix database
Retrieves distinct field values of documents from the movies collection that match a query filter
Prints the distinct values

The example calls the following methods on the Movie model:

where(): Matches documents in which the value of the directors field includes "Sofia Coppola"
select(): Retrieves the matching documents' imdb.rating field values
distinct(): Retrieves the unique values of the selected field and returns the list of values
get(): Retrieves the query results

$ratings = Movie::where('directors', 'Sofia Coppola')
    ->select('imdb.rating')
    ->distinct()
    ->get();
echo $ratings;

[[5.6],[6.4],[7.2],[7.8]]

This example performs the following actions:

Accesses the movies collection by calling the table() method from the DB facade
Retrieves distinct field values of documents from the movies collection that match a query filter
Prints the distinct values

The example calls the following query builder methods:

where(): Matches documents in which the value of the directors field includes "Sofia Coppola"
select(): Retrieves the matching documents' imdb.rating field values
distinct(): Retrieves the unique values of the selected field and returns the list of values
get(): Retrieves the query results

$ratings = DB::table('movies')
    ->where('directors', 'Sofia Coppola')
    ->select('imdb.rating')
    ->distinct()
    ->get();
echo $ratings;

[5.6,6.4,7.2,7.8]

To learn how to edit your Laravel application to run the usage example, see the Usage Examples landing page.

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