How to count and fetch data query in laravel?

So, as far as I understand from your comment, you simply want to get all records from the table category_to_news and you want to know how many records are in there, right?

MySQL's count is an aggregate functions, which means: It takes a set of values, performs a calculation and returns a single value. If you put it into your names-query, you get the same value in each record. I'm not sure if that has anything to do with 'optimization'.

As already said, you simply run your query as usual:

$data = DB::table('category_to_news')
      ->where('name', ucwords($category))
      ->remember(1440)
      ->get(['title']);

$data is now of type Illuminate\Support\Collection which provides handy functions for collections, and one them is count() (not to be confused with the above mentioned aggregate function - you're back in PHP again, not MySQL).

So $data->count() gives you the number of items in the collection (which pretty much is an array on steroids) without even hitting the database.

Hi DB class dont return collection object it give error "call member function on array" but eloquent return collection object. for above code we can use collect helper function to make it collection instance then use count and other collection methods https://laravel.com/docs/5.1/collections#available-methods .

$data = DB::table('category_to_news')
      ->where('name', ucwords($category))
      ->remember(1440)
      ->get();
$data = collect($data);

$data->count();

You my get it using:

$data = DB::table('category_to_news')
          ->where('name', ucwords($category))
          ->remember(1440)
          ->get();

To get the count, try this:

$data->count();

Why you are using DB::table(...), instead you may use Eloquent model like this, create the model in your models directory:

class CategoryToNews extends Eloquent {
    protected $table = 'category_to_news';
    protected $primaryKey = 'id'; // if different than id then change it here
}

Now, you may easily use:

$data = CategoryToNews::whereName(ucwords($category))->get();

To get the count, use:

$data->count();