How to add collate to laravel query

Question

I need to run a query having collate utf8_bin like so:

SELECT * FROM `table` WHERE `field`=\'value\' collate utf8_bin;

This is

Answer 1

Since you can configure MySQL driver to use one:

'mysql' => array(
    'driver'    => 'mysql',
    'host'      => 'localhost',
    'database'  => 'database',
    'username'  => 'root',
    'password'  => '',
    'charset'   => 'utf8',
    'collation' => 'utf8_unicode_ci',
    'prefix'    => '',
),

You can create a different connection for your particular query:

'mysql-collation' => array(
    'driver'    => 'mysql',
    'host'      => 'localhost',
    'database'  => 'database',
    'username'  => 'root',
    'password'  => '',
    'charset'   => 'utf8',
    'collation' => '',
    'prefix'    => '',
),

And use that connection on your query:

$users = DB::connection('mysql-collation')->select(...);

EDIT:

On a Model, you probably will be able to set a connection this way:

$posts = new Word;
$posts->setConnection('mysql-collation');
$posts->where(...);