Comparison of datetime using Laravel eloquent

Question

Hello, I’m having problems using Laravel’s eloquent to create an SQL that meets the following demand: "return a query if there is a reservation made in a certain period of time"; Following the code of my function which, checks whether a reservation has already been made for that particular period

private function isOut($timeIn, $timeOut)
{
    $timeIn = date_format(date_create($timeIn), 'Y-m-d H:i:s');
    $timeOut = date_format(date_create($timeOut), 'Y-m-d H:i:s');
    $output = new Output();
    $query = $output->select('*')
        ->where('users_id', Auth::user()->id)
        ->where(function($q) use ($timeIn,$timeOut){
            $q->orWhere(function($s) use ($timeIn,$timeOut){
                $s->whereDate('start_at','>=',$timeIn)
                ->whereDate('start_at','<=',$timeOut);
            })->orWhere(function ($s) use ($timeIn, $timeOut){
                $s->whereDate('end_at','>=',$timeIn)
                ->whereDate('end_at','<=',$timeOut);
            });
        })
        ->get()
        ->toArray();
    return $query;
}

As stated above, its purpose is to check whether in the time interval of start_at and end_at there is any reservation made. As a basis, for this code I created the following SQL:

select * from `outputs` 
where `users_id` = 1 
AND (
        (
            `start_at` >= CONVERT('2019-03-09 13:00:00',DATETIME) 
             AND `start_at` <=  CONVERT('2019-03-10 13:00:00',DATETIME)
        )
    OR  
        (
            `end_at` >= CONVERT('2019-03-09 13:00:00',DATETIME) 
             AND `end_at` <=  CONVERT('2019-03-10 13:00:00',DATETIME)
        )
    )
and `outputs`.`deleted_at` is NULL

However, this is the code I picked up on the debbuger relating to what I wrote above:

select * from `outputs` 
where `users_id` = 1 
AND (
        (
            DATE (`start_at`) >= '2019-03-09 13:00:00'  
            AND DATE(`start_at`) <= '2019-03-10 13:00:00'
        ) 
    OR 
        (
            DATE(`end_at`) >= '2019-03-09 13:00:00' 
            AND DATE(`end_at`) <= '2019-03-10 13:00:00'
        )
    ) 
and `outputs`.`deleted_at` is null

So my doubt, to work with dates, I found no other way if not the use of ->whereDate() in Laravel, but this function can not meet the demand, because I believe it is only looking at the DATE format of the string, being necessary to consider DATETIME, in summary: There is some other way to use DATETIME in Laravel, or there is something I missed concerning the comparison of dates by the framework?

Answer 1

Thanks and credit to Virgilio Novic

I worried so much about ensuring that the string was seen as DATETIME that I did not consider that the default Mysql formatting is interpreted by itself as a DATETIME object if the value is unquoted.

In this case between perfectly solves my need:

private function isOut($timeIn, $timeOut)
{
    $timeIn = date_format(date_create($timeIn), 'Y-m-d H:i:s');
    $timeOut = date_format(date_create($timeOut), 'Y-m-d H:i:s');
    $output = new Output();
    $query = $output->select('*')
        ->where('users_id', Auth::user()->id)
        ->where(function($q) use ($timeIn,$timeOut){
            $q->orWhere(function($s) use ($timeIn,$timeOut){
                $s->whereBetween('start_at',[$timeIn,$timeOut]);
            })->orWhere(function ($s) use ($timeIn, $timeOut){
                $s->whereBetween('end_at',[$timeIn,$timeOut]);
            });
        })
        ->get()
        ->toArray();
    return $query;
}

Answer 2

Friend could you make the whole project available? I am doing a college job that I need to use dates and I found its perfect code, could you provide the controller a view a model and the bank? may be just print even it is already perfect, I want to use for study purposes