Laravel Query Builder firstOrFail()?

Question

When I use Query Builder I Always find myself doing something like this:

    $item = \DB::table('table')->where('slug',$slug)->first();

    if ($item===null)
        throw \Exception('Not found');

This could be easly solved if there were a firstOrFail() like Eloquent:

$item = \DB::table('table')->where('slug',$slug)->firstOrFail();

Is Eloquent the only way to use firstOrFail() ? Does Query Builder allow something like this?

Answer 1

You can add it yourself to the query builder, via a macro:

DB::query()->macro('firstOrFail', function () {
    if ($record = $this->first()) {
        return $record;
    }

    throw new Exception('No records found');
});

Then you can use it the same way you do Eloquent:

$item = DB::table('table')->where('slug', $slug)->firstOrFail();

Answer 2

you are almost there, laravel does provide a way to check something like this

DB::table('table')->where('slug', $slug)->exists()

DB::table('table')->where('slug', $slug)->doesntExist()

it will return boolean, hope this helps

Update: how i did it in projects was

function checkIfExists($table, $value, $field = 'id'){
    return DB::table($table)->where($field, $value)->exists()
}
function getFirst($table, $value, $field = 'id'){
    return DB::table($table)->where($field, $value)->first()
}

and then use this function like this

if(checkIfExists('users', 2))
    $user = getFirst('users', 2)
else
    // throw exception or something

Hope this helps