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Apply Eloquent attribute casts to your form request input. Dates become Carbon instances, "1" becomes true, enum values become enum cases, and so on, before the input reaches your controller.

Laravel SaaS Boilerplate - Larafast

Requirements

Package	PHP	Laravel
2.x	8.2 – 8.5	12.x, 13.x
1.x	7.2 – 8.0	6.x – 8.x

Laravel 13 requires PHP 8.3 or newer.

Installation

composer require lionix/castable-request

The service provider is registered automatically through package discovery.

Usage

Implement Lionix\CastableRequest\Contracts\CastableRequestInterface on your form request and return the casts from a casts() method, just like you would on an Eloquent model.

namespace App\Http\Requests;

use App\Enums\PostStatus;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Http\FormRequest;
use Illuminate\Validation\Rule;
use Lionix\CastableRequest\Contracts\CastableRequestInterface;

class PostsIndexRequest extends FormRequest implements CastableRequestInterface
{
    public function casts(): array
    {
        return [
            'created_after' => 'date',
            'status' => PostStatus::class,
            'with_trashed' => 'boolean',
            'per_page' => 'integer',
            'tags.*' => 'string',
            'filters.*.value' => 'float',
        ];
    }

    public function rules(): array
    {
        return [
            'created_after' => ['sometimes', 'date'],
            'status' => ['sometimes', Rule::enum(PostStatus::class)],
            'with_trashed' => ['sometimes', 'boolean'],
            'per_page' => ['sometimes', 'integer', 'max:100'],
        ];
    }
}

The casted values are available through the usual request methods (input(), all(), get(), property access, …):

namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use App\Http\Requests\PostsIndexRequest;

class PostsController extends Controller
{
    public function index(PostsIndexRequest $request)
    {
        $request->input('created_after');   // Illuminate\Support\Carbon
        $request->input('status');          // App\Enums\PostStatus
        $request->input('with_trashed');    // bool
        $request->validated('per_page');    // int
    }
}

How it works

The form request is resolved and validated against the raw input, so invalid values produce the usual 422 validation errors instead of casting exceptions.
Once validation has passed, the casts are applied to the request input.
The validator's data is updated too, so $request->validated() and $request->safe() also return the casted values.

Because casting happens after validation, write your rules for the raw input, e.g. Rule::enum(PostStatus::class) for an enum cast or date for a date cast.

Supported casts

Every cast Eloquent supports works here, including:

Primitives: int / integer, float / double / real, decimal:<precision>, string, bool / boolean
Dates: date, datetime, immutable_date, immutable_datetime, timestamp
JSON-like: array, json, object, collection (both JSON strings and already-decoded arrays are accepted)
Backed enums: App\Enums\Status::class
Custom casts: any class implementing CastsAttributes or Castable, including arguments (Money::class.':EUR')

Casts are only applied to attributes that are present in the input. null values of present attributes are passed through the cast as Eloquent would (most built-in casts keep null as null).

Nested input and wildcards

Attributes use "dot" notation and support * wildcards at any level:

public function casts(): array
{
    return [
        'author.birthday' => 'date',
        'items.*.price' => 'decimal:2',
        'items.*.options.*.enabled' => 'boolean',
        '*.id' => 'integer', // top-level list payloads
    ];
}

Global casts

To apply casts to every form request, register them on the CastsRegistryInterface singleton, e.g. in a service provider:

namespace App\Providers;

use Illuminate\Support\ServiceProvider;
use Lionix\CastableRequest\Contracts\CastsRegistryInterface;

class AppServiceProvider extends ServiceProvider
{
    public function boot(CastsRegistryInterface $casts): void
    {
        $casts->register('created_after', 'date');
        $casts->register('page', 'integer');
    }
}

Global casts are applied to all form requests, whether or not they implement CastableRequestInterface. When a request defines a cast for the same attribute, the request's cast wins.

Use $casts->forget('page') to remove a global cast and $casts->all() to list them.

Customization

All the moving parts are bound to interfaces in the container, so you can swap any of them:

Contract	Default implementation	Responsibility
`Contracts\CasterInterface`	`EloquentModelCaster`	Casts a single value
`Contracts\RequestInputCasterInterface`	`RequestInputCaster`	Resolves attribute paths and writes values back to the request
`Contracts\CastsRegistryInterface`	`InMemoryCastsRegistry` (singleton)	Stores global casts

$this->app->bind(
    \Lionix\CastableRequest\Contracts\CasterInterface::class,
    \App\Support\MyCaster::class,
);

Upgrading

See UPGRADE.md for upgrading from 1.x to 2.x, and CHANGELOG.md for all notable changes.

Testing

composer test      # PHPUnit
composer lint      # Laravel Pint (code style)
composer analyse   # PHPStan / Larastan

Credits

License

The MIT License (MIT). See LICENSE for more information.

lionix / castable-request

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