Get Only the value of field mongodb using laravel

Question

My question is similar with NodeJS get only value of MongoDB result.
But in this case, i'm using laravel.

This is my controller :

public function validation(Request $request)
    {
        $email= $request->input('email');
        $password= $request->input('password');

        if (DB::table('customer')
            ->where('email','=',$email)
            ->where('password','=',$password)
            ->exists())
        {
            $data=DB::table('customer')
            ->select('first_name')
            ->where('email','=',$email)
            ->project(['_id' => 0])
            ->get();

            echo $data;
        }
        else
        {
            echo 'Wrong email or password';
        }
      }

And the output is :

[{"first_name":"John"}]

I want the result only
John
and removing field name, bracket, and the others. What should i do ? And, is there any documentation for this ?

Answer 1

I've figured out by myself. Based on How to remove double quotes from a string.
The solution is using trim function.

Import this first on the controller :

use Illuminate\Support\Str;

And then, got a little bit change on :

           $name=DB::table('customer')
            ->select('first_name')
            ->where('email','=',$email)
            ->project(['_id' => 0])
            ->get()
            ->flatten();

           $data=Str::of($name)->trim('[""]');
           echo $data;