Aggregations | Followable

In this section, we’ll explore how to perform aggregation queries to count various follow relationships, including followings and followers, using the Followable package. These counts can help you generate insights into user interactions, such as how many users a specific user is following or how many followers they have.

Counting Followings

You can easily count the followings for a user using the count() method. This will return the total number of users a particular user is following.

Basic Followings Count

// Total number of users the current user is following
$user->followings()->count();

Approved Followings Count

if your application has follow request approval (as described in the previous section), you can count the number of approved followings:

// Number of users the current user is following and has approved
$user->approvedFollowings()->count();

Non-Approved Followings Count

To count the number of followings that have not yet been approved, you can use the notApprovedFollowings() method:

// Number of users the current user is following but has not approved
$user->notApprovedFollowings()->count();

Followings Count with Additional Conditions

You can also apply additional conditions to the followings count. For example, if you want to count only the followings that were created within a specific date range, you can do so like this:

// Count followings created within a specific date range
$user->followings()
    ->whereBetween('created_at', ['2023-01-01', '2023-12-31'])
    ->count();

Counting Followers

You can also count the followers for a user using the same approach. This will return the total number of users following a particular user.

Basic Followers Count

// Total number of users following the current user
$user->followers()->count();

Approved Followers Count

If your application has follow request approval, you can count the number of approved followers:

// Number of users following the current user and have been approved
$user->approvedFollowers()->count();

Non-Approved Followers Count

To count the number of followers that have not yet been approved, you can use the notApprovedFollowers() method:

// Number of users following the current user but have not been approved
$user->notApprovedFollowers()->count();

Using withCount to Retrieve Follow Counts in One Query

You can also use the withCount() method to retrieve the counts of followings and followers in a single query. You can retrieve the follow counts (such as followings and followers) directly when retrieving a collection of users. The withCount method allows you to fetch aggregate data along with your usual model queries.

Basic withCount Usage

// Retrieve all users with their followings and followers count
$users = User::withCount(['followings', 'followers'])->get();

This will return a collection of users, each with additional attributes followings_count and followers_count, representing the number of followings and followers for each user.

Using withCount for Approved Followings and Followers

You can also use withCount to get the counts of approved followings and followers:

// Retrieve all users with their approved followings and followers count
$users = User::withCount(['approvedFollowings', 'approvedFollowers'])->get();

This will return a collection of users, each with additional attributes approved_followings_count and approved_followers_count, representing the number of approved followings and followers for each user.

Accessing Aggregated Data

Once the data is retrieved, you can access the aggregated counts via dynamic properties. For example, each user will now have a followings_count and followers_count attribute.

foreach ($users as $user) {
    // Access the total number of followings and followers
    echo $user->followings_count;
    echo $user->followers_count;
 
    // Or access the count of approved followings and followers
    echo $user->approved_followings_count;
    echo $user->approved_followers_count;
}

Counting with Custom Relationships

You can also retrieve counts for more complex relationships such as approved and not approved followings. Here’s an example of how to aggregate these counts and apply additional conditions:

// Retrieve all users with their approved and not approved followings
$users = User::withCount(['approvedFollowings', 'notApprovedFollowings'])->get();
 
foreach ($users as $user) {
    echo "User {$user->name} has {$user->approved_followings_count} approved followings and {$user->not_approved_followings_count} not approved followings.";
}

Order by Followers Count

Sometimes, you may want to query users based on how many followers they have. You can use the following methods to order users by their followers count.

Available Methods: • orderByFollowersCountDesc() • orderByFollowersCountAsc() • orderByFollowersCount(string $direction = 'desc')

Example: Order Users by Followers Count

// Order users by followers count in descending order
$users = User::orderByFollowersCountDesc()->get();
 
// Get the most popular user (with the highest follower count)
$mostPopularUser = User::orderByFollowersCountDesc()->first();
// Get the least popular user (with the lowest follower count)
$leastPopularUser = User::orderByFollowersCountAsc()->first();

Get followings Follow Status