# SQL

In addition to the Eloquent model driver, Lodata can discover database tables directly. This can be used to expose tables through OData that are not used in Eloquent models, such as through tables for many-to-many relationships. This is required for applications that treat OData Feeds as relational database models such as PowerBI and Tableau. It can also be used to expose databases that are not even used in the Laravel application, or to use Lodata as simply an OData endpoint for an existing database.

SQL database tables can be discovered using this syntax:

class LodataServiceProvider extends ServiceProvider
{
    public function boot()
    {
        $passengerType = new \Flat3\Lodata\EntityType('passenger');
        $passengerSet = (new \Flat3\Lodata\Drivers\SQLEntitySet('passengers', $passengerType))
            ->setTable('passengers')
            ->discoverProperties();
        \Lodata::add($passengerSet);
    }
}

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First define an empty entity type with the name passenger, and use it to generate the entity set. Then assign the table name passengers. When discoverProperties is executed, passengerType will be filled with field types discovered by the entity set.

Almost all the available $filter capabilities are mapped into SQL expressions, supporting all the same database backends that Laravel does.

This driver supports $search by passing the provided search term into field LIKE %param% requests.

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