[5.7] Custom Eloquent attribute casts

[Propaganistas]

I often feel the need to define an accessor/mutator combination when I want certain attributes to be automatically converted from and to a dedicated value object. Since this logic is reusable across various models but not necessarily on equal named attributes, I think the most clean way to implement this kind of functionality is when custom casts can be defined.

class AppServiceProvider extends ServiceProvider
{
    public function boot()
    {
        Model::extendCasts('phoneObject', function($value) {
            // First closure is the accessor closure.
            return new Phone($value);
        }, function($value) {
            // Second closure is the mutator closure.
            return $value instanceof Phone ? $value->getNormalizedValue() : $value;
        });
}

class SomeModel extends Model
{
    protected $casts = [
        'someAttribute' => 'phoneObject',
    ];
}

Looking forward to your feedback.

[sisve]

1. Would this support something like User::where('phone', '=', $phoneObject)->get()?
2. Can this handle value objects that is composed of more than one attribute?

[taylorotwell]

If I can't mutate the objects and then call ->save() and parent object and have those changes be reflected in the database I'm not very interested. Even then everyone argued about it to the point I lost interest.