Working with array data type in Laravel

People love to work with array data types mostly due to it’s simplicity and ability store multiple data of same type in one variable. Let’s take a look at how array data type can be used to store data in a laravel application.

Laravel doesn’t have array as available column types. In order to store array data we have to make use of json column type and laravel casts functionality. Here is a step wise implementation of that.

Step 0-

Create a new laravel project.

laravel new laradiy
/* or */
composer create-project laravel/laravel laradiy

Step 1-

Create ArrayData model.

cd laradiy
php artisan make:model ArrayData -mc

-mc will create migrations and controller for us.

Step 2-

Edit migration table to accept array.

/database/migrations/2021_03_20_120154_create_array_data_table.php

public function up()
{
Schema::create('array_data', function (Blueprint $table) {
$table->id();
$table->json('random_list');
$table->timestamps();
});
}

It will create a json column of random_list , data will be stored as serialized JSON.

Step 3-

Modify the ArrayData model to accept random_list and cast it as array.

/app/Models/ArrayData.php

class Organisation extends Model
{
use HasFactory;
protected $fillable= ['random_list'];
protected $casts = [
'random_list' => 'array'
];
}

The array cast will automatically deserialize random_list to a PHP array when you access it on your Eloquent model.

Step 4-

Now let’s modify the ArrayDataController to store and display the data stored.

/app/Http/Controllers/ArrayDataController.php

use App\Models\ArrayData;
class ArrayDataController extends Controller
{
public function create()
{
ArrayData::create([
'random_list' => [1,2,3],
]);
return 'done';
}
public function index()
{
$data = ArrayData::find(1);
dd($data->random_list);
}
}

The create function will create and store random_list to your database. The index function will display random_list array.

Step 5-

Let’s create the routes to check our application.

/routes/web.php

use App\Http\Controllers\ArrayDataController;
Route::get('/arraydata', [ArrayDataController::class, 'index']);
Route::get('/createdata', [ArrayDataController::class, 'create']);

Step 6-

Now lets run the migrations

php artisan migrate
php artisan serve

Open localhost:8000 . Go to /createarray , it will create an entry in the database. Now go to /arraydata , and you will see your random_list array printed out.

So, that’s how array data can be used in laravel. Hope this helps. See you later, alligator.