What is Eloquent ORM in Laravel?

Eloquent ORM (Object-Relational Mapping) is Laravel’s built-in database abstraction layer, providing an elegant and expressive syntax for interacting with relational databases. It allows developers to work with databases using PHP syntax rather than writing raw SQL queries, making database interactions cleaner, easier to understand, and more maintainable.

At the core of Eloquent is the concept of “Models”. Each model typically corresponds to a table in the database. For example, a User model would correspond to a users table. These models are classes that extend Laravel’s base Model class, and they provide a straightforward way to perform common database operations like querying, inserting, updating, and deleting records.

One of the key features of Eloquent is Active Record implementation. This means each model instance represents a single row in the database, and you can use object-oriented methods to interact with data. For instance, to retrieve all users from the database, you can simply use:

$users = User::all();

To find a user by ID:

$user = User::find(1);

Eloquent also supports mass assignment, allowing you to create or update multiple fields at once:

$user = User::create([
    'name' => 'John Doe',
    'email' => 'john@example.com'
]);

Another powerful feature is relationships. Eloquent makes it easy to define and manage relationships between different models, such as:

• One-to-One: A user has one profile.
• One-to-Many: A post has many comments.
• Many-to-Many: A user belongs to many roles.

These relationships can be defined using methods within the model classes. For example, to define a one-to-many relationship between a Post and Comment:

// In Post model
public function comments()
{
    return $this->hasMany(Comment::class);
}

Then, you can retrieve all comments of a post with:

$post = Post::find(1);
$comments = $post->comments;

Eloquent also supports query scopes, accessors, mutators, soft deletes, and eager loading, making it a comprehensive solution for most ORM needs.

In summary, Eloquent ORM is one of the key features that makes Laravel a powerful and developer-friendly framework. It reduces the need for repetitive and error-prone SQL code, while offering a clear, fluent syntax for managing complex database operations. Whether you’re building simple CRUD applications or working with complex data relationships, Eloquent provides a structured, efficient, and expressive way to handle database interactions.