What is Eloquent in Laravel used for?

Eloquent is an ORM (Object-Relational Mapper) for Laravel. It provides a convenient, object-oriented way to interact with the database, allowing you to work with tables as models and rows as objects.

Main features of Eloquent:

• Simplified queries: Allows executing database queries using model methods instead of writing SQL code directly.
• Relationships between models: Easily define and retrieve related data between tables (one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-many).
• Active Record pattern: Supports the Active Record pattern, where a model object represents a row in a table, and model methods reflect operations on that row.
• Data handling: Provides convenient interfaces for inserting, updating, deleting, and retrieving data.
• Model events: Allows binding logic to the lifecycle of models (e.g., before saving or after deleting).

Example of retrieving users:

// app/Models/User.php
namespace App\Models;

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;

class User extends Model
{
    // ...
}

// Controller or another class
use App\Models\User;

// Get all users
$users = User::all();

// Get a user by ID
$user = User::find(1);

// Get users with a specific condition
$activeUsers = User::where('status', 'active')->get();