Laravel select records older than 5 minutes?

Question

I have Laravel app where i check user loggedin regularly with a heartbeat for every 3 seconds (demo purpose, actually 5 minutes). For each beat I check if user\'s last activity

Answer 1

You can use whereRaw():

$result = DB::table('db_user')->where('id_user','=',Session::get('id_user'))->whereRaw('last_activity >= now() - interval 5 minute')->get();

or

$result = DB::table('db_user')->where('id_user','=',Session::get('id_user'))->whereRaw('last_activity >= now() - interval ? minute', [5])->get();

Answer 2

Assuming your business logic is correct, try using PHP instead of an SQL string in the where clause:

$date = new DateTime;
$date->modify('-5 minutes');
$formatted_date = $date->format('Y-m-d H:i:s');

$result = DB::table('db_user')->where('id_user','=',Session::get('id_user'))->where('last_activity','>=',$formatted_date)->get();

Also, it is a good practice to always output the executed SQL queries just to make sure Laravel behaves as expected:

$queries = DB::getQueryLog();

Answer 3

The accepted answer is correct, but you could make it even cleaner by using a query scope on the User model (assuming that you have a User model)...

$result = User::currentUser()->activityOlderThan(self::HEARTBEAT_INTERVAL)->get();

Your User model would then have these functions:

public function scopeCurrentUser($query)
{
    return $query->where('id_user', '=', Session::get('id_user'));
}

And

public function scopeActivityOlderThan($query, $interval)
{
    return $query->where('last_activity', '>=', Carbon::now()->subMinutes($interval)->toDateTimeString());
}

Now your code is clean and easy to read :-)