Extract Arrays from Any Data Type with Laravel's Arr::from Method

Laravel's new Arr::from method provides a unified approach to convert collections, objects, and other structures into arrays, handling various input types intelligently.

Convert different data types to arrays:

use Illuminate\Support\Arr;

// From collections
Arr::from(collect(['status' => 'active'])); // ['status' => 'active']

// From Jsonable objects
Arr::from($jsonable); // Decodes via Jsonable interface

// From Arrayable objects
Arr::from($arrayable); // Returns via toArray() method

Here's how you might use this in a configuration manager:

class ConfigurationManager
{
    public function processSettings($settings)
    {
        $array = Arr::from($settings);
        
        return $this->validateSettings($array);
    }
    
    public function combineConfigurations(...$configs)
    {
        return collect($configs)
            ->map(fn($config) => Arr::from($config))
            ->reduce(fn($carry, $item) => array_merge($carry, $item), []);
    }
    
    public function sanitizeAndStore($configuration, array $schema)
    {
        $data = Arr::from($configuration);
        
        $validator = Validator::make($data, $schema);
        
        if ($validator->fails()) {
            throw new ValidationException($validator);
        }
        
        return $data;
    }
}

$manager = new ConfigurationManager();

$result = $manager->processSettings(collect(['cache' => 'redis']));
$combined = $manager->combineConfigurations(
    collect(['database' => 'mysql']),
    new DatabaseConfig(),
    $cacheSettings
);

The Arr::from method provides a consistent interface for array extraction, eliminating the need to check data types or call different methods based on the input structure.