Laravel: Optional Date filter not working when receiving string from JS frontend

New to Laravel and PHP so having a diffucult time with a small problem:

I’m stepping deep into a Collection and want to bring back nested items only that meet a certain (optional) date criteria.

Unfortunately, it isn’t working (at all). Here is my code:

    public function getAnalyticsData(Request $request): JsonResponse
    {
        $data = collect();
        $user = $request->user();

        // Incoming request params
        $dataType = $request->input('data-type');
        $startDate = $request->filled('start-date') ? strtotime($request->input('start-date')) : '';
        $endDate = $request->filled('end-date') ? strtotime($request->input('end-date')) : '';

        if ($dataType === 'orders') {
            $workgroupId = $request->input('workgroup-id');
            $workgroups = Workgroup::where('id', $workgroupId)->with('analyticsOrders')->get();

            $ordersData = $workgroups->map(function ($order) use ($startDate, $endDate) {
                return collect($order)->only(['analytics_orders'])->map(function ($item) use ($startDate, $endDate) {
                    return collect($item)->when($startDate, function ($query) use ($startDate) {
                        $query->where('created_at', '>=', $startDate);
                    })->when($endDate, function ($query) use ($endDate) {
                        $query->where('created_at', '<=', $endDate);
                    });
                });
            });

            $data->put('analyticsData', $ordersData);
        } else if ($dataType === 'integrations') {

            $data->put('analyticsData', $user);
        }
        // This is just to return something, please ignore
        return response()->jsonSuccess($data);
    }

While I have your attention, how can I only return the analytics_orders array shown below (right now the data is very messy):

Answer

I guess you have mixed laravel collection with eloquent collection. Eloquent collection is on top of laravel collection not vice versa.

In laravel collection, when you use when() method, a that collection will be passed to the closure function, there isn’t anything about laravel eloquent and $query object. You have that collection instance and you should return something in your closure function.

So, edit your closure function as below and use return

return collect($item)->when($startDate, function ($collection) use ($startDate) {
                        return $collection->where('created_at', '>=', $startDate);
                    })->when($endDate, function ($collection) use ($endDate) {
                        return $collection->where('created_at', '<=', $endDate);
                    });