Remove Collection Items Directly with Laravel's forget Method

Laravel's collection forget method provides a straightforward approach to remove elements by their keys while modifying the original collection in place.

The forget method removes items by their keys:

$collection = collect(['email' => 'user@example.com', 'role' => 'admin']);
 
// Remove a single key
$collection->forget('email');
// Result: ['role' => 'admin']
 
// Remove multiple keys
$collection->forget(['email', 'role']);
// Result: []

Here's how you might use it in a shopping cart manager:

class CartManager
{
    protected $items;
 
    public function __construct(array $cartItems)
    {
        $this->items = collect($cartItems);
    }
 
    public function removeItems(string|array $productIds)
    {
        $this->items->forget($productIds);
 
        return $this;
    }
 
    public function clearExpiredDiscounts()
    {
        $expiredCoupons = ['summer_sale', 'flash_deal', 'early_bird'];
 
        $this->items->forget($expiredCoupons);
 
        return $this;
    }
 
    public function removeUnavailableProducts(array $outOfStock)
    {
        // Remove specific out-of-stock items
        $this->items
            ->forget(
                collect($outOfStock)
                    ->map(fn($sku) => "product_{$sku}")
                    ->all()
            );
 
        return $this;
    }
}
 
$cart = new CartManager([
    'product_123' => ['qty' => 2, 'price' => 29.99],
    'shipping' => 9.99,
    'summer_sale' => -5.00,
    'product_456' => ['qty' => 1, 'price' => 15.50]
]);
 
$cart->clearExpiredDiscounts()
     ->removeUnavailableProducts(['456']);

Unlike other collection methods, forget modifies the original collection, making it perfect for direct data manipulation.