sefirosweb/laravel-general-helper

A bundle of helpers for develop, contains method for generate excels , csv, array optimizations and more

v12.0.3 2026-04-23 19:25 UTC

Requires

• php: ^8.2
• barryvdh/laravel-dompdf: ^3.0
• laravel/framework: ^12.0
• phpoffice/phpspreadsheet: ^3.0

Requires (Dev)

• orchestra/testbench: ^10.0
• phpunit/phpunit: ^11.0

MIT

• Sefirosweb

README

Collection of helpers and utility classes for Laravel apps: array manipulation, CSV/Excel generation and parsing, PDF rendering, per-request caching, and a Redis wrapper.

Requirements

• PHP ^8.2
• Laravel ^12.0
• For PDF helpers: barryvdh/laravel-dompdf ^3.0 (installed as a dependency).
• For Excel helpers: phpoffice/phpspreadsheet ^3.0 (installed as a dependency).

Installation

composer require sefirosweb/laravel-general-helper:^12.0

The service provider auto-registers via Laravel's package discovery. It loads the global function helpers and exposes routes under the general_helper prefix for downloading/streaming saved files.

Run migrations to create the saved_files table used for tracking generated CSV/Excel/PDF/ZIP files:

php artisan migrate

Configuration

Publish the config to change the route prefix or middleware:

php artisan vendor:publish --provider="Sefirosweb\LaravelGeneralHelper\LaravelGeneralHelperServiceProvider" --tag=config --force

Default config/laravel-general-helper.php:

return [
    'prefix'     => 'general_helper',
    'middleware' => 'web',
];

Global function helpers

All of these are loaded globally by the service provider and available anywhere in your app.

Array helpers

array_group_by(array $array, string|int|callable $key, bool $onlyFirstValue = false): array

Group a list of associative arrays or objects by a field or callback. With $onlyFirstValue = true each group is reduced to just its last assigned element.

$grouped = array_group_by($rows, 'type');
$parity  = array_group_by([1, 2, 3, 4], fn ($n) => $n % 2 === 0 ? 'even' : 'odd');

array_group_by_multidimensional(array $array, array $union_by, bool $onlyFirstValue = false): ?array

Same as array_group_by but nests groups one level per key:

$tree = array_group_by_multidimensional($rows, ['country', 'city']);
// $tree['es']['mad'] = [ ...rows from Madrid... ]

objectToArray(mixed $obj): mixed

Recursively convert stdClass (and nested arrays of them) to pure arrays. Scalars pass through unchanged.

mergeArrays($main, $secondary, $union_by, $union_first_value = false, $force_mmatch = false): array

Join $main with $secondary by one or more keys (like a SQL JOIN). If $force_mmatch = true rows from $main with no match are dropped.

mergeArraysOnSubArray($main, $secondary, $union_by, $name, $union_first_value = false): array

Like mergeArrays but the matched records from $secondary are nested under a named key in each $main row.

String helpers

br2nl(string $string): string

Replace any <br>/<br/>/<br /> tag with \n.

eliminar_tildes(string $cadena): string

Strip Spanish accents / tildes (á → a, ñ → n, ç → c…).

char_at(string $str, int $pos): string

Return the character at $pos in $str. Thin wrapper over $str[$pos].

SQL parameter-marker helpers

generateMarks(string $markName, array $values): stdClass

Build a parameterised SQL placeholder list from an array of values. Returns {sql, assoc}.

$r = generateMarks('id', [10, 20, 30]);
// $r->sql  = " :id_0,:id_1,:id_2\n"
// $r->assoc = ['id_0' => 10, 'id_1' => 20, 'id_2' => 30]

Returns sql = 'false' when the input array is empty.

createMarks(array $rows): stdClass

Concatenate multiple filter expressions into a single SQL fragment with associative bindings. Each row in $rows must have filter, name, value keys.

query(string $query, ?array $marks = null, string|false $database = false): array

Run a raw DB::select and return the result as a pure array. Optionally routes through a specific connection.

File-saving helpers

All of these return a SavedFile Eloquent model (rows in saved_files). The file path is inside storage_path('tmp'), and the authenticated user is associated with the file when available (Auth::user() being null is safe — the FK is nullable).

Helper	Description
pathTemp(): string	Return (and create if missing) storage_path('tmp'). Adds a .gitignore to keep the dir out of git.
saveCsvInServer($arrayData, $fileName, $delimiter = ';', $enclosure = '"', $latingMode = false, $headers = true, $utf8_decode = false, $enclosureAll = false): SavedFile	Write data to a CSV file. If $utf8_decode = true, output bytes are converted to ISO-8859-1 (useful for Excel-on-Windows).
saveCsvInServerAndDownload(...): Response	Like saveCsvInServer but returns a download response.
saveExcelInServer($arrayData, $fileName, $headers = true, $creator = null): SavedFile	Write data to an .xlsx file using ExcelHelper under the hood.
saveExcelInServerAndDownload(...): Response	Like saveExcelInServer but returns a download response.
savingZipInServer($files, $fileName): SavedFile	Bundle arbitrary files/folders into a .zip.
saveZipInServerAndDownload(...): Response	Like savingZipInServer but returns a download response.

Excel parsing

excelToArray(string $filePath, string|false $encode = false): array

Read .xls/.xlsx/.csv into an associative array. The first row is treated as headers.

$rows = excelToArray('/path/to/users.xlsx');
// [
//   ['name' => 'Alice', 'age' => 30],
//   ['name' => 'Bob',   'age' => 25],
// ]

Throws \Exception on unsupported formats or unreadable files.

Validation

validateArray(array $array, array $rules): array

Run Laravel's Validator against each row of $array. Returns an array of rows that failed, each with an extra errors key.

Helper classes

CacheRequest — per-request in-memory cache

Key/value cache that lives for the duration of a single HTTP request (or console command). Ideal for avoiding duplicate DB queries inside a single page render.

use Sefirosweb\LaravelGeneralHelper\Helpers\CacheRequest;

CacheRequest::set('user_permissions', $perms);
$perms = CacheRequest::get('user_permissions');

// Compute lazily, cache the result:
$settings = CacheRequest::remember('settings', fn () => Setting::pluck('value', 'key'));

CacheRequest::delete('user_permissions');
CacheRequest::flush(); // clear the whole cache

RedisHelper — Redis convenience wrapper

Wraps Illuminate\Support\Facades\Redis with JSON serialisation and exception-swallowing for read paths (so a Redis outage returns null instead of breaking the request).

use Sefirosweb\LaravelGeneralHelper\Helpers\RedisHelper;

RedisHelper::set('user:1', ['name' => 'Alice'], 3600);
$user = RedisHelper::get('user:1');          // array or null
RedisHelper::delete('user:1');

// Publish on a channel:
RedisHelper::publish('events', ['event' => 'ping']);

// Read-through cache — $prod=true means cache in every environment,
// $prod=false caches only in `local` (useful for dev/testing without
// polluting prod-like environments).
$heavy = RedisHelper::call(
    fn () => expensiveQuery(),
    key: 'heavy:query',
    prod: true,
    EX: 600,
);

PdfHelper — dompdf wrapper

Thin wrapper around barryvdh/laravel-dompdf ^3.0.

use Sefirosweb\LaravelGeneralHelper\Helpers\PdfHelper;

$pdf = new PdfHelper();
$pdf->loadView('invoices.show', ['invoice' => $invoice]);
$pdf->setPaper('a4', 'portrait');

// Stream inline:
return $pdf->showFile('invoice-123.pdf');

// Force download:
return $pdf->download('invoice-123');

// Save to disk + persist a SavedFile row:
$savedFile = $pdf->save('invoice-123');

// Tweak a dompdf option directly:
$pdf->set_option('isRemoteEnabled', true);

ExcelHelper — phpspreadsheet wrapper

Builder for multi-sheet .xlsx files backed by phpoffice/phpspreadsheet ^3.0.

use Sefirosweb\LaravelGeneralHelper\Helpers\ExcelHelper;

$excel = new ExcelHelper('sales_report');
$excel->addSheet($customers, 'Customers', headers: true);
$excel->addSheet($orders,    'Orders',    headers: true);

$savedFile = $excel->save();
// returns a SavedFile; file is at $savedFile->path

Testing

The package ships with an Orchestra Testbench suite covering array helpers, encoding conversion (regression for the utf8_decode removal in PHP 9), CacheRequest, RedisHelper (with the Redis facade mocked), ExcelHelper round-trips, excelToArray, PdfHelper, and CSV export encoding.

composer install
./vendor/bin/phpunit

When working from the laravel-test harness with Sail:

docker exec -w /var/www/html/packages/laravel-general-helper laravel-test-laravel.test-1 ./vendor/bin/phpunit

Versioning

Major versions are aligned with Laravel majors (12.x, 11.x, 9.x …). See the root CLAUDE.md of the test harness for the full policy.

License

MIT.