Serialization

Often times a Model will need to be converted to arrays or JSON for use in a API endpoint. Mantle includes convenient methods for making these conversions and controlling which attributes remain hidden/visible in your serializations.

Serializing Models

Models implement the Arrayable contract and include a convenient to_array() method to convert a model to an array. This method is recursive, so all attributes and all relations (including the relations of relations) will be converted to arrays:

$post = App\Models\Post::first();

return $post->to_array();

A collection of models will also properly serialize all models to array.

$posts = App\Models\Post::all();

return $posts->to_array();

Hiding Attributes from Serialization

Sometimes you may need to hide attributes from serialization to prevent public display. Model attributes can be hidden from serialization using the $hidden property on your model, or using the set_hidden() or make_hidden_if() methods on the model.

namespace App\Models;

use Mantle\Database\Model\Post;

class Product extends Post {
	/**
	 * The attributes that should be hidden for arrays.
	 *
	 * @var array
	 */
	protected $hidden = [ 'post_title' ];
}

Alternatively, you may use the visible property to define an allow list of attributes that should be included in your model's array and JSON representation. In addition to the $visible property, you can also use set_visible() or make_visible_if() methods on the model, too. Once an attribute is set visible, all other attributes will be hidden:

namespace App\Models;

use Mantle\Database\Model\Post;

class Product extends Post {
	/**
	 * The attributes that should be visible for arrays.
	 *
	 * @var array
	 */
	protected $visible = [ 'post_title', 'post_content ];
}

Temporarily Setting Attribute Visibility

Attributes on a model can use the additional methods on the model to set attribute visibility.

$post->make_visible( 'attribute' )->to_array():
$post->make_hidden( 'title' )->to_array():

Appending Values to Serialization

When converting to an array or JSON, you may need to append attributes that do not have a corresponding column in your database. This can be accomplished by defining a custom accessor for the value and including it in the appends property on your model:

use Mantle\Database\Model\Post;

class Author extends Post {
	protected $appends = [ 'avatar' ];

	public function get_avatar_attribute(): string {
		return "https://example.org/{$this->id}.jpg";
	}
}

In the Author model, an avatar attribute will be included in the serialized response. An attribute can also be appended at run-time:

$author->append( 'avatar' )->to_array();
$author->set_appends( 'avatar' )->to_array();