Simplify Chronological Query Sorting with latest() and oldest()

Replace verbose orderBy('created_at', 'desc') clauses with the clean latest() and oldest() query builder helpers.

Sorting records by creation timestamp is the most common ordering operation in database queries.

Instead of writing orderBy('created_at', 'desc') or orderBy('created_at', 'asc'), Laravel provides the latest() and oldest() query builder methods.

Basic Usage

use App\Models\Post;

// Equivalent to: orderBy('created_at', 'desc')
$newestPosts = Post::latest()->paginate(15);

// Equivalent to: orderBy('created_at', 'asc')
$oldestPosts = Post::oldest()->paginate(15);

Ordering by Custom Date Columns

Pass a column name to sort chronologically by custom date or integer columns:

// Sort by published_at DESC
$recentArticles = Article::latest('published_at')->get();

// Sort by scheduled_for ASC
$upcomingEvents = Event::oldest('scheduled_for')->get();

Summary

• Defaults to the model's created_at timestamp column.
• Accepts custom column names as the first argument.
• Clean and self-documenting builder syntax.