Add a custom attribute to a Laravel / Eloquent model on load?

Question

The problem is caused by the fact that the Model's toArray() method ignores any accessors which do not directly relate to a column in the underlying table.

As Taylor Otwell mentioned here, "This is intentional and for performance reasons." However there is an easy way to achieve this:

class EventSession extends Eloquent {

    protected $table = 'sessions';
    protected $appends = array('availability');

    public function getAvailabilityAttribute()
    {
        return $this->calculateAvailability();  
    }
}

Any attributes listed in the $appends property will automatically be included in the array or JSON form of the model, provided that you've added the appropriate accessor.

Old answer (for Laravel versions < 4.08):

The best solution that I've found is to override the toArray() method and either explicity set the attribute:

class Book extends Eloquent {

    protected $table = 'books';

    public function toArray()
    {
        $array = parent::toArray();
        $array['upper'] = $this->upper;
        return $array;
    }

    public function getUpperAttribute()
    {
        return strtoupper($this->title);    
    }

}

or, if you have lots of custom accessors, loop through them all and apply them:

class Book extends Eloquent {

    protected $table = 'books';

    public function toArray()
    {
        $array = parent::toArray();
        foreach ($this->getMutatedAttributes() as $key)
        {
            if ( ! array_key_exists($key, $array)) {
                $array[$key] = $this->{$key};   
            }
        }
        return $array;
    }

    public function getUpperAttribute()
    {
        return strtoupper($this->title);    
    }

}

The last thing on the Laravel Eloquent doc page is:

protected $appends = array('is_admin');

That can be used automatically to add new accessors to the model without any additional work like modifying methods like ::toArray().

Just create getFooBarAttribute(...) accessor and add the foo_bar to $appends array.

If you rename your getAvailability() method to getAvailableAttribute() your method becomes an accessor and you'll be able to read it using ->available straight on your model.

Docs: https://laravel.com/docs/5.4/eloquent-mutators#accessors-and-mutators

EDIT: Since your attribute is "virtual", it is not included by default in the JSON representation of your object.

But I found this: Custom model accessors not processed when ->toJson() called?

In order to force your attribute to be returned in the array, add it as a key to the $attributes array.

class User extends Eloquent {
    protected $attributes = array(
        'ZipCode' => '',
    );

    public function getZipCodeAttribute()
    {
        return ....
    }
}

I didn't test it, but should be pretty trivial for you to try in your current setup.

I had something simular: I have an attribute picture in my model, this contains the location of the file in the Storage folder. The image must be returned base64 encoded

//Add extra attribute
protected $attributes = ['picture_data'];

//Make it available in the json response
protected $appends = ['picture_data'];

//implement the attribute
public function getPictureDataAttribute()
{
    $file = Storage::get($this->picture);
    $type = Storage::mimeType($this->picture);
    return "data:" . $type . ";base64," . base64_encode($file);
}

Step 1: Define attributes in $appends
Step 2: Define accessor for that attributes.
Example:

<?php
...

class Movie extends Model{

    protected $appends = ['cover'];

    //define accessor
    public function getCoverAttribute()
    {
        return json_decode($this->InJson)->cover;
    }

you can use setAttribute function in Model to add a custom attribute

Let say you have 2 columns named first_name and last_name in your users table and you want to retrieve full name. you can achieve with the following code :

class User extends Eloquent {


    public function getFullNameAttribute()
    {
        return $this->first_name.' '.$this->last_name;
    }
}

now you can get full name as:

$user = User::find(1);
$user->full_name;