How can I get the raw query string from Laravel's query builder BEFORE executing the query?

You can get it doing:

$query = DB::table('brands')
                ->join('products','a','=','c')
                ->whereNull('whatever');

echo $query->toSql();

But Laravel will not show you parameters in your query, because they are bound after preparation of the query.

So you can also do:

print_r( $query->getBindings() );

For debugging this might come quite handy as it returns the SQL with the bindings, so you can instantly put it into the database console.

/**
 * Combines SQL and its bindings
 *
 * @param \Eloquent $query
 * @return string
 */
public static function getEloquentSqlWithBindings($query)
{
    return vsprintf(str_replace('?', '%s', $query->toSql()), collect($query->getBindings())->map(function ($binding) {
        return is_numeric($binding) ? $binding : "'{$binding}'";
    })->toArray());
}

Piggy back off andi79h's answer. The function works well, except it's assuming binding would not have any quotes that could break the query.

I added "addslashes" to $bindings to make it a bit safer. Although, ideally, it should be run through mysqli_real_escape_string() if you have an active connection to work with. https://www.php.net/manual/en/mysqli.real-escape-string.php

/**
 * Combines SQL and its bindings
 *
 * @param \Eloquent $query
 * @return string
 */
public static function getEloquentSqlWithBindings($query)
{
    return vsprintf(str_replace('?', '%s', $query->toSql()), collect($query->getBindings())->map(function ($binding) {
        $binding = addslashes($binding);
        return is_numeric($binding) ? $binding : "'{$binding}'";
    })->toArray());
}