Define One-to-One Subsets with latestOfMany() and oldestOfMany()

Create direct single-model relationships for the newest or oldest item in a one-to-many relationship using ofMany() helpers.

When an entity owns multiple child records (such as a Customer having many Orders, or a User having many Logins), accessing only the most recent child often leads to loading all children and sorting in memory.

Laravel provides latestOfMany() and oldestOfMany() to define efficient HasOne relationships backed by a SQL subquery.

Defining the Relationship

namespace App\Models;

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Relations\HasMany;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Relations\HasOne;

class Customer extends Model
{
    public function orders(): HasMany
    {
        return $this->hasMany(Order::class);
    }

    public function latestOrder(): HasOne
    {
        return $this->hasOne(Order::class)->latestOfMany();
    }

    public function oldestOrder(): HasOne
    {
        return $this->hasOne(Order::class)->oldestOfMany();
    }
}

Custom Aggregate Sorting

You can also specify custom column sorting (such as the highest order amount):

public function largestOrder(): HasOne
{
    return $this->hasOne(Order::class)->ofMany('total_amount', 'max');
}

Eager Loading and Query Usage

Because latestOrder is a standard HasOne relationship, it can be eager-loaded without fetching unnecessary historical records:

$customers = Customer::with('latestOrder')->get();

foreach ($customers as $customer) {
    echo $customer->latestOrder?->total_amount;
}

Summary

• Eliminates N+1 memory overhead by querying single record subsets in SQL.
• Works as a standard HasOne relationship that supports full eager loading.
• Supports custom aggregates via ofMany('column', 'max') or ofMany('column', 'min').