Laravel default orderBy

Before Laravel 5.2

Nowadays we can solve this problem also with global scopes, introduced in Laravel 4.2 (correct me if I'm wrong). We can define a scope class like this:

<?php namespace App;

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Builder;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\ScopeInterface;

class OrderScope implements ScopeInterface {

    private $column;

    private $direction;

    public function __construct($column, $direction = 'asc')
    {
        $this->column = $column;
        $this->direction = $direction;
    }

    public function apply(Builder $builder, Model $model)
    {
        $builder->orderBy($this->column, $this->direction);

        // optional macro to undo the global scope
        $builder->macro('unordered', function (Builder $builder) {
            $this->remove($builder, $builder->getModel());
            return $builder;
        });
    }

    public function remove(Builder $builder, Model $model)
    {
        $query = $builder->getQuery();
        $query->orders = collect($query->orders)->reject(function ($order) {
            return $order['column'] == $this->column && $order['direction'] == $this->direction;
        })->values()->all();
        if (count($query->orders) == 0) {
            $query->orders = null;
        }
    }
}

Then, in your model, you can add the scope in the boot() method:

protected static function boot() {
    parent::boot();
    static::addGlobalScope(new OrderScope('date', 'desc'));
}

Now the model is ordered by default. Note that if you define the order also manually in the query: MyModel::orderBy('some_column'), then it will only add it as a secondary ordering (used when values of the first ordering are the same), and it will not override. To make it possible to use another ordering manually, I added an (optional) macro (see above), and then you can do: MyModel::unordered()->orderBy('some_column')->get().

Laravel 5.2 and up

Laravel 5.2 introduced a much cleaner way to work with global scopes. Now, the only thing we have to write is the following:

<?php namespace App;

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Builder;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Scope;

class OrderScope implements Scope
{

    private $column;

    private $direction;

    public function __construct($column, $direction = 'asc')
    {
        $this->column = $column;
        $this->direction = $direction;
    }

    public function apply(Builder $builder, Model $model)
    {
        $builder->orderBy($this->column, $this->direction);
    }
}

Then, in your model, you can add the scope in the boot() method:

protected static function boot() {
    parent::boot();
    static::addGlobalScope(new OrderScope('date', 'desc'));
}

To remove the global scope, simply use:

MyModel::withoutGlobalScope(OrderScope::class)->get();

Solution without extra scope class

If you don't like to have a whole class for the scope, you can (since Laravel 5.2) also define the global scope inline, in your model's boot() method:

protected static function boot() {
    parent::boot();
    static::addGlobalScope('order', function (Builder $builder) {
        $builder->orderBy('date', 'desc');
    });
}

You can remove this global scope using this:

MyModel::withoutGlobalScope('order')->get();

In Laravel 5.7, you can now simply use addGlobalScope inside the model's boot function:

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Builder;

protected static function boot()
{
    parent::boot();

    static::addGlobalScope('order', function (Builder $builder) {
        $builder->orderBy('created_at', 'desc');
    });
}

In the above example, I order the model by created_at desc to get the most recent records first. You can change that to fit your needs.

Another way of doing this could be by overriding the newQuery method in your model class. This only works if you never, ever want results to be ordered by another field (since adding another ->orderBy() later won't remove this default one). So this is probably not what you'd normally want to do, but if you have a requirement to always sort a certain way, then this will work:

protected $orderBy;
protected $orderDirection = 'asc';

/**
 * Get a new query builder for the model's table.
 *
 * @param bool $ordered
 * @return \Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Builder
 */
public function newQuery($ordered = true)
{
    $query = parent::newQuery();    

    if (empty($ordered)) {
        return $query;
    }    

    return $query->orderBy($this->orderBy, $this->orderDirection);
}

Yes you would need to extend Eloquent to always do this as standard for any query. What's wrong with adding an order by statement to the query when you need it ordered? That is the cleanest way, ie, you dont need to 'unhack' Eloquent to get results by natural order.

MyModel::orderBy('created_at', 'asc')->get();

Other than that the closest thing to what you want would be to create query scopes in your models.

public function scopeOrdered($query)
{
    return $query->orderBy('created_at', 'asc')->get();
}

You can then call ordered as a method instead of get to retrieve your ordered results.

$data = MyModel::where('foo', '=', 'bar')->ordered();

If you wanted this across different models you could create a base class and just extend it to the models you want to have access to this scoped method.