Laravel “Pipe Through” Collections Method

Laravel v8.78.1 introduces a new pipeThrough() collection method, allowing developers to insert an array of pipe callbacks that can manipulate the collection:

Recently merged into Laravel, you will soon be able to call collect()->pipeThrough($pipes) to run a collection through an array of callbacks, passing return values into following pipes 🤩 pic.twitter.com/5m9fThcoaw

— Steve Bauman (@SteveTheBauman) January 5, 2022

The author of the pull request, Steve Bauman, shared an additional example that might help you visualize example use-cases of this method:

$process = [
    // Iterate through the health checks and attempt,
    // filtering the collection by unsuccessful.
    fn ($checks) => $checks->filter(
        fn ($check) => ! $check->attempt()
    ),
 
    // Iterate through all the unsuccessful checks
    // notifying their users of each failed check.
    fn ($unsuccessful) => $unsuccessful->each(
        fn ($check) => $check->users()->each(
            fn ($user) => $user->notify(
                new HealthCheckFailed($check)
            )
        )
    )
];
 
collect(HealthChecks::all())->pipeThrough($process);

The pipeThrough() method is a flexible way to run whatever collection code you have through a series of callbacks and invokable classes. Yet, the implementation is simple. Here’s the pipeThrough method in the Collection class at the time of release:

public function pipeThrough($pipes)
{
    return static::make($pipes)->reduce(
        function ($carry, $pipe) {
            return $pipe($carry);
        },
        $this,
    );
}

A related method in the Collection class is the pipe() method, which accepts a single callable and returns the result of the executed closure.

$collection = collect([1, 2, 3]);
 
$piped = $collection->pipe(function ($collection) {
    return $collection->sum();
});

If you’d like to learn more about the pipeThrough method, check out Pull Request #40253. Also, you can see the complete list of changes between 8.78.0 and this week's 8.78.1 release on GitHub.