I want to run a sql query that I store in a variable in Laravel. It's really easy to do in CodeIgniter with just running $this->db->sql($sql). I wonder if there is a way like this in Laravel.
$sql = "SELECT u.*,c.city_name,prov.province_name FROM users u ".
"LEFT JOIN cities c ON c.city_id=u.city_id".
"LEFT JOIN provinces prov ON prov.province_id=u.province_id".
"WHERE u.id= ?";
I tried to execute it using DB::table($sql) but I guess that's not the way.
EDIT:
Using the following is working fine but I still wonder if I just can run something like I do in CI with running $this->db->query($sql).
$user = User::select('users.*','cities.city_name','provinces.province_name')
->where('users.id', Auth::id())
->leftJoin('cities','cities.city_id','=','users.city_id')
->leftJoin('provinces','provinces.province_id','=','users.province_id')
->get()->first();