How to pass a part of Laravel Eloquent query to method

I think that the error is because where is called without an eloquent model class.

Something you can do with query builder is to call a function inside your where condition like:

SomeModel::where(function($query){
// do something
$query->where(...)
})

I doubt there is nothing exactly like what you described. But there are alternatives, if I understand correctly, you are trying to chain multiple methods.

If so, you can do the following:

In your model class:

static function getActiveBooks()
{
    return self::where('status', 'active');
}
public function getFeaturedBooks() {
    return $this->getActiveBooks()->where('featured', 'active');
}

Usage:

$activeBooks = (new Book())->getFeaturedBooks()->get();

There are multiple ways, you can also use scope as @levi described in the comment section , they are 2 sides of the same coin.

I realise this is quite old, but thought this might help others who come across this question.

It might be better to refactor so that the partial query is added to an existing query via a method.

$query = ModelName::where('...');
$query = addPartOfQuery($query);
/* continue doing whatever else you need to do with the query, for example */
$models = $query->get();

The addPartOfQuery() method would then be something like this:

function addPartOfQuery($query) {
    return $query->where('columnName', '>=', 5)->whereRaw('Other Condition');
}

Another possible approach would be to use a local scope in a trait that can be used by all models that need it.

trait PartOfQuery {
    public function scopePartOfQuery(Builder $query): void {
        $query->where('columnName', '>=', 5)->whereRaw('Other Condition');
    }
}

In each model class that needs to use the partial query, you would need to use the trait.

class ModelName {
    use PartOfQuery;
...
}

Your queries could then be written like this.

ModelName::partOfQuery()->where('...');

The trait approach only works if the partial query is always the same, regardless of the model. Otherwise, you could just add a separate scopes in each model, or use the first approach and add logic and additional parameters to the addPartOfQuery() method to handle any model-specific requirements.

To read more on local scopes, see https://laravel.com/docs/10.x/eloquent#local-scopes.