Streamline Your Laravel Models with Stringable Attributes

Laravel's AsStringable cast is a powerful tool that can significantly enhance how you work with string attributes in your Eloquent models. By transforming your string attributes into Stringable objects, you gain access to a wide array of string manipulation methods, leading to cleaner and more expressive code.

This approach is particularly valuable for content-heavy applications where string manipulation is frequent, helping you maintain cleaner controllers and views.

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Casts\AsStringable;
 
class Post extends Model
{
    protected function casts(): array
    {
        return [
            'title' => AsStringable::class,
            'content' => AsStringable::class
        ];
    }
}

Here's a practical example of a content management system:

<?php
 
namespace App\Models;
 
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Casts\AsStringable;
 
class Article extends Model
{
    protected function casts(): array
    {
        return [
            'title' => AsStringable::class,
            'content' => AsStringable::class,
            'meta_description' => AsStringable::class
        ];
    }
 
    public function getSnippetAttribute()
    {
        return $this->content
            ->stripTags()
            ->words(30, '...');
    }
 
    public function getUrlPathAttribute()
    {
        return $this->title
            ->slug()
            ->prepend('/articles/');
    }
 
    public function getFormattedContentAttribute()
    {
        return $this->content
            ->markdown()
            ->replaceMatches('/\@mention\((.*?)\)/', '<a href="/users/$1">@$1</a>')
            ->replace('[[', '<mark>')
            ->replace(']]', '</mark>');
    }
 
    public function getSeoTitleAttribute()
    {
        return $this->title
            ->title()
            ->limit(60);
    }
}

$article = Article::find(1);
// Access Stringable methods directly
dd($article->title->title());
dd($article->content->words(20));
 
// Use computed attributes
dd($article->snippet);
dd($article->url_path);
dd($article->formatted_content);

The AsStringable cast transforms string handling into an elegant, method-chaining experience while keeping your code clean and maintainable.