Understanding the query() Method in Laravel’s Eloquent ORM for Dynamic Query Building

In Laravel, when using the Eloquent ORM, you can directly use methods like `where()` or `orderBy()` on the model itself without explicitly calling `query()`. For example:

// Retrieve users with a specific condition
$users = User::where('age', '>', 25)->get();
// Retrieve users with multiple conditions
$users = User::where('age', '>', 25)
->orderBy('name')
->get();
 

In the above examples, we directly use the `where()` and `orderBy()` methods on the `User` model to build the query. 

This approach is sufficient for most cases and provides a convenient and concise way to construct queries.

However, there may be scenarios where you need to conditionally modify the query based on certain conditions. This is where explicitly calling `query()` becomes useful. By calling `query()`, you get an instance of the query builder, which allows you to dynamically add or remove conditions based on runtime conditions. Here’s an example:

$query = User::query();
if ($ageFilter) {
$query->where('age', '>', $ageFilter);
}
if ($nameFilter) {
$query->where('name', 'like', '%' . $nameFilter . '%');
}
$users = $query->orderBy('name')->get();

In the above example, we conditionally add `where()` clauses to the query based on the values of `$ageFilter` and `$nameFilter`. 

By using `query()`, we can dynamically modify the query builder instance and apply different conditions based on the situation.

So, while calling `query()` is not required in most cases, it can be beneficial when you need to conditionally modify the query at runtime.