Laravel Accessors and Mutators (Eloquent Steps 2 )

Accessors are used to format the attributes when you retrieve them from database. Whereas, Mutators are used to format the attributes before saving them into the database.

Lets get started

*Creating Accessors *

Suppose that you have two column

first_name & last_name in users table
Now you want to get the user full_name. Accessors create a "fake"attribute on the object which you can access as if it were a database column. So if your person has first_nameand last_nameattributes, you could write User Model:

`Syntax to create accessor –

To define an accessor, create a get{Attribute}Attribute method on your model where {Attribute} is the “studly” cased name of the column.`

Model User.php

  protected function getFullNameAttribute()
    {
        return $this->fist_name . "" . $this->last_name;
    }

and a Controller that looks like this:

<?php

namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use App\Models\User;

class AccessorMutatorController extends Controller
{

    //get accesor userFullName
    public function getUser()
    {
        $users = User::get();

        foreach($users as $user){
            echo  $user->full_name;
        }

    }
}

also a routethat looks like this:

Route::get('accessor',[AccessorMutatorController::class,'getUser']);

Creating Mutators

A mutator transforms an Eloquent attribute value when it is set. Mutators work when we save data inside database table.

Syntax to create mutators –

To define a mutator, define a set{Attribute}Attribute method on your model where {Attribute} is the “studly” cased name of the column which we want to get altered when saved.

Model User.php

    // when "name" will save, it will convert into lowercase
    protected function setNameAttribute($value){
        $this->attributes['name'] = strtolower($value);
    }

and a Controller that looks like this:

<?php

namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use App\Models\User;

class AccessorMutatorController extends Controller
{
    //setUser with mutator
    public function setUser()
    {
        $user = new User();

        $user->name = "Alan Donald";
        $user->fist_name = "Alan";
        $user->last_name = "Donald";
        $user->email = "[e-mail]";
        $user->password = bcrypt("123456");

        $user->save();
    }

}

also a routethat looks like this:

Route::get('mutator',[AccessorMutatorController::class,'setUser']);

Check the result

The result should look something like this:

Hurray! We have successfully created and used accessors and mutators , use this on your future projects to improve the readability , stability and performance of your code!

Comments

[david duymelinck]

I would skip the controllers because they are bringing noise to the article. Maybe you could show the accessor an mutator code, and create one controller to show how to use them.

If you add php after the first three ticks, you will get colored code, which is nicer to read.

[Al-Amin Islam]

Thank you so much .