laravel/framework — pull request #3745 by zhuston (2014-03-01 04:59:47+00:00)
Title: array_fetch work with array of objects using magic __get (Eloquent models)

I ran into this need when I eager loaded relations 2 levels deep and then wanted to use fetch on the collection or array_fetch() to retrieve a list of the 2nd level models.
Ex: (simplified)
$answers = Answer::with('question.user')->get();

I want to get an array or collection of users from the $answers collection.
1. I tried the fetch method on the collection but it does not give me what I need because it coverts the Collection toArray() before running the fetch and therefore not returning an array of models intact.
$answers->fetch('question.user');

2. I tried array_fetch($answers, 'question.user') but that didn't work because array_fetch casts the values to arrays even if they are objects which are array accessible.
- I am not exactly sure why the cast exists, unless as a way to make it work for many objects

This seemed like something that would be of use to others and myself. Fixing it to work with the array_fetch helper (2) seemed the least likely to break for others. I added an is_object check which I thought would be non-breaking in all but the rare circumstance someone was counting on an object being cast to an array and accessing private/protected properties with the odd * and class name prefixes.

* If this is implemented I wonder if the toArray() conversion in the fetch() Collection method would no longer be needed, which would allow both methods to work.