Array & JSON Casting in Laravel

Array & JSON Casting in Laravel

The array cast type is particularly useful when working with columns that are stored as serialized JSON. For example, if your database has a JSON or TEXT field type that contains serialized JSON, adding the array cast to that attribute will automatically deserialize the attribute to a PHP array when you access it on your Eloquent model:

<?php

namespace App\Models;

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;

class User extends Model
{
    /**
     * The attributes that should be cast.
     *
     * @var array
     */
    protected $casts = [
        'options' => 'array',
    ];
}

Once the cast is defined, you may access the options attribute and it will automatically be deserialized from JSON into a PHP array. When you set the value of the options attribute, the given array will automatically be serialized back into JSON for storage:

$user = App\Models\User::find(1);

$options = $user->options;

$options['key'] = 'value';

$user->options = $options;

$user->save();

To update a single field of a JSON attribute with a more terse syntax, you may use the -> operator:

$user = App\Models\User::find(1);

$user->update(['options->key' => 'value']);

$user->update(['options->name' => 'test']);