[php] laravel collection to array

I have two models, Post and Comment; many comments belong to a single post. I'm trying to access all comments associated with a post as an array.

I have the following, which gives a collection.

$comments_collection = $post->comments()->get()

How would I turn this $comments_collection into an array? Is there a more direct way of accessing this array through eloquent relationships?

Use all() method - it's designed to return items of Collection:

/**
 * Get all of the items in the collection.
 *
 * @return array
 */
public function all()
{
    return $this->items;
}

Try collect function in array like:

$comments_collection = collect($post->comments()->get()->toArray());

this methods can help you

toArray() with collect()

Use collect($comments_collection).

Else, try json_encode($comments_collection) to convert to json.

you can do something like this

$collection = collect(['name' => 'Desk', 'price' => 200]);
$collection->toArray();

Reference is https://laravel.com/docs/5.1/collections#method-toarray

Originally from Laracasts website https://laracasts.com/discuss/channels/laravel/how-to-convert-this-collection-to-an-array

Try this:

$comments_collection = $post->comments()->get()->toArray();

see this can help you
toArray() method in Collections