[php] Laravel check if collection is empty

I've got this in my Laravel webapp:

@foreach($mentors as $mentor)
    @foreach($mentor->intern as $intern)
        <tr class="table-row-link" data-href="/werknemer/{!! $intern->employee->EmployeeId !!}">
            <td>{{ $intern->employee->FirstName }}</td>
            <td>{{  $intern->employee->LastName }}</td>
        </tr>
    @endforeach
@endforeach

How could I check if there are any $mentors->intern->employee ?

When I do :

@if(count($mentors))

It does not check for that.

Starting from Laravel 5.3 you can simply use :

if ($mentor->isNotEmpty()) {
//do something.
}

Documentation https://laravel.com/docs/5.5/collections#method-isnotempty

I prefer

(!$mentor)

Is more effective and accurate

From php7 you can use Null Coalesce Opperator:

$employee = $mentors->intern ?? $mentors->intern->employee

This will return Null or the employee.

To determine if there are any results you can do any of the following:

if ($mentor->first()) { } 
if (!$mentor->isEmpty()) { }
if ($mentor->count()) { }
if (count($mentor)) { }
if ($mentor->isNotEmpty()) { }

Notes / References

->first()

https://laravel.com/api/5.7/Illuminate/Database/Eloquent/Collection.html#method_first

isEmpty() https://laravel.com/api/5.7/Illuminate/Database/Eloquent/Collection.html#method_isEmpty

->count()

https://laravel.com/api/5.7/Illuminate/Database/Eloquent/Collection.html#method_count

count($mentors) works because the Collection implements Countable and an internal count() method:

https://laravel.com/api/5.7/Illuminate/Database/Eloquent/Collection.html#method_count

isNotEmpty()

https://laravel.com/docs/5.7/collections#method-isnotempty

So what you can do is :

if (!$mentors->intern->employee->isEmpty()) { }

This is the fastest way:

if ($coll->isEmpty()) {...}

Other solutions like count do a bit more than you need which costs slightly more time.

Plus, the isEmpty() name quite precisely describes what you want to check there so your code will be more readable.

This is the best solution I found so far.

in blade

@if($mentors->count() == 0)
    <td colspan="5" class="text-center">
        Nothing Found
    </td>
@endif

in controller

if ($mentors->count() == 0) {
    return "Nothing Found";
}