In Laravel's Eloquent ORM, you can easily append attributes to a model that don't exist in the database but can be derived from existing attributes. These are often called "accessors."
Here's how to append an attribute to a model using an accessor:
- Define an Accessor:
To define an accessor, create a get<AttributeName>Attribute method on your model where <AttributeName> is the studly cased name of the column you wish to access.
2. Use the $appends Property:
If you want the attribute to be included in the model's array or JSON representation, you should add it to the $appends property on the model.
Example:
Suppose you have a User model with first_name and last_name columns in the database, but you want to easily retrieve the user's full name.
namespace App\Models;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
class User extends Model
{
// Attributes to be appended to the model's array or JSON representation
protected $appends = ['full_name'];
// Accessor to get the full name
public function getFullNameAttribute()
{
return $this->first_name . ' ' . $this->last_name;
}
}
Now, when you convert a User model instance to an array or JSON, it will include the full_name attribute:Remember, accessors will not affect how data is stored in your database, only how it's represented when you access it using Eloquent.
