How to Dump the Underlying SQL Query From Eloquent

Actually, we'll check out a few ways to do this, since it depends on how you need to see the data. Let's get started!

toSql¶

This method will show the raw SQL with ? placeholders.

$query = User::where('email', 'alex@codecourse.com');
dd($query->toSql());

Here's the output:

select * from `users` where `email` = ?

Notice this doesn't show the data being bound into the placeholders in the query. Let's look at getBindings next to figure that out.

getBindings()¶

This will show the actual binding values.

$query = User::where('email', 'alex@codecourse.com');
dd($query->getBindings());

Here's the output:

[
    "alex@codecourse.com"
]

So, if the toSql method is helpful, you can use getBindings whenever needed to show the actual values. There's a way to get both though, up next!

toRawSql()¶

This will give you the entire raw SQL.

dd(User::where('email', 'alex@codecourse.com')->toRawSql());

Here's the output:

select * from `users` where `email` = 'alex@codecourse.com'

So toRawSql pretty much combined what we've already seen into one helpful dump of the SQL query being used behind-the-scenes.

Whatever method you use, you now have several options to dump the underlying SQL query from Eloquent in Laravel.