How do I prevent unnecessary data from being loaded with eager loading

Use the `select` method

When eager loading relationships, you can specify which columns to select from the related models using the `select` method. This prevents unnecessary columns from being loaded.

php
$posts = Post::with(['comments' => function ($query) {
    $query->select('id', 'post_id', 'body');
}])->get();

This will only load the `id`, `post_id`, and `body` columns from the `comments` table.

Use the `select` method on the parent model

You can also use the `select` method on the parent model to specify which columns to load.

php
$posts = Post::select('id', 'title', 'content')
              ->with('comments')
              ->get();

This will only load the `id`, `title`, and `content` columns from the `posts` table, along with the eager loaded `comments`.

Use the `addSelect` method

If you want to add additional columns to the default selected columns, you can use the `addSelect` method.

php
$posts = Post::select('id', 'title')
              ->addSelect('created_at', 'updated_at')
              ->with('comments')
              ->get();

This will load the `id`, `title`, `created_at`, and `updated_at` columns from the `posts` table, along with the eager loaded `comments`.

Use the `only` method

The `only` method allows you to specify which columns to load, while excluding all others.

php
$posts = Post::with(['comments' => function ($query) {
    $query->only('id', 'post_id', 'body');
}])->only('id', 'title', 'content')
     ->get();

This will only load the specified columns from both the `posts` and `comments` tables.

By using these methods, you can control which columns are loaded when eager loading relationships, preventing unnecessary data from being fetched from the database and improving the performance of your application.