Exploring the defer() Function in Laravel: A Practical Guide

Laravel has always been at the forefront of making developers’ lives easier by introducing features that simplify complex tasks. One such recent addition is the defer() function. Introduced in the Laravel 11.23 release, its a game-changer for handling non-blocking operations in your application. In this post, we’ll explore how the defer() function works and implement a practical example where a user’s request count is incremented without delaying their response.

Introduction

The N+1 problem is a common performance issue that arises when dealing with database queries in Laravel and other ORMs (Object-Relational Mappers). This problem can lead to significant inefficiencies in your application, especially when working with large datasets.

In this blog post, we’ll explore the N+1 problem, how it manifests in Laravel applications, and effective ways to resolve it.

What Is the N+1 Problem?

The N+1 problem occurs when an application executes one query to retrieve a set of records (the “1”) and then executes an additional query for each record in that set (the “N”). This results in a total of N+1 queries, which can severely impact performance as the number of records grows.