Use named parameters. They're covered in the documentation in the Running Raw SQL Queries section of the Database page, under the subheading Using Named Bindings. Quoting:
Instead of using ?
to represent your parameter bindings, you may execute a query using named bindings:
$results = DB::select('select * from users where id = :id', ['id' => 1]);
In your case you ought to be able to run this:
DB::table('users as u')
->select('id')
->whereRaw('u.id > :id or u.id < :id or u.id = :id', [
'id' => 2,
])
->first();
But it seems Laravel throws a QueryException
with the message Invalid parameter number
. I've reported this as a bug.
If you really want to use whereRaw
you could instead build your array of parameters from a variable:
$id = 2;
DB::table('users as u')
->select('id')
->whereRaw('u.id > ? or u.id < ? or u.id = ?', [
$id, $id, $id,
])
->first();
Or use array_fill
to repeat the value for you:
$id = 2;
DB::table('users as u')
->select('id')
->whereRaw('u.id > ? or u.id < ? or u.id = ?', array_fill(0, 3, $id))
->first();
If you don't need whereRaw
you can instead use other features of the query builder and build the query bit by bit, with the parameter coming from a variable:
$id = 2;
DB::table('users')
->select('id')
->where('id', '>', $id)
->orWhere('id', '<', $id)
->orWhere('id', $id)
->first();
The query builder is quite powerful, and to get more complicated logic you can nest closures. See the relevant section of the docs for some examples.