How can I access attributes using camel case?

Question

To be consistent over my coding style, I'd like to use camelCase to access attributes instead of snake_case. Is this possible in Laravel without modifying the core framework? If so, how?

Example:

// Database column: first_name echo $user->first_name; // Default Laravel behavior echo $user->firstName; // Wanted behavior

miken32 · Accepted Answer · 2024-05-30 14:52:14Z

Create your own BaseModel class and override the following methods. Make sure all your other models extend your BaseModel.

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model; use Illuminate\Support\Str; class BaseModel extends Model { // Allow for camelCased attribute access public function getAttribute($key) { return parent::getAttribute(Str::snake($key)); } public function setAttribute($key, $value) { return parent::setAttribute(Str::snake($key), $value); } }

Then for usage:

// Database column: first_name echo $user->first_name; // Still works echo $user->firstName; // Works too!

This trick revolves around forcing the key to snake case by overriding the magic method used in Model.

You also have to extend __isset() and __unset() methods. Otherwise isset(), empty() and unset() functions will not work properly with camel case keys. I spent half a day on this bug.
FYI I rolled back the edit that a user made a few years ago to your answer because a) they were rewriting your answer beyond the scope of a minor edit, and b) because the code inserted was plagiarized directly from another answer. I followed up with a small edit to your original code to actually address compatibility issues.

miken32 · Accepted Answer · 2024-05-30 14:53:22Z

Since SO doesn't allow pasting code snippets in comments, I'm posting this as a new answer.

To make sure that eager loading does not break, I had to modify @Lazlo's answer. When accessing eagerly loaded relations by a different key, they are reloaded.

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model; use Illuminate\Support\Str; class BaseModel extends Model { public function getAttribute($key) { if (array_key_exists($key, $this->relations)) { return parent::getAttribute($key); } else { return parent::getAttribute(Str::snake($key)); } } public function setAttribute($key, $value) { return parent::setAttribute(Str::snake($key), $value); } }

can you explain the issue that you solved here? i'm not really following that verification you do on the relations array?
let's say you run the query User::with('likedPosts'), it will be stored as $user->attributes['likedPosts']. However, when you override getAttribute and change everything into snake_case, then it would try to access $user->attributes['liked_posts'] when you write $user->likedPosts, which doesn't exist. Then laravel will lazy load the relationship, even though the relationship was already loaded (as likedPosts). To prevent this, the if statement is necessary.

miken32 · Accepted Answer · 2024-05-30 14:55:59Z

Just thought I'd post this in case it helps anyone else. Though the answer by Bouke is great it does not address lazy-loaded relations that use a camel-case name. When this occurs we simply need to check for the method name in addition to the other checks. The following is what I did:

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model; use Illuminate\Support\Str; class BaseModel extends Model { public function getAttribute($key) { if ( array_key_exists($key, $this->relations) || method_exists($this, $key) ) { return parent::getAttribute($key); } else { return parent::getAttribute(Str::snake($key)); } } public function setAttribute($key, $value) { return parent::setAttribute(Str::snake($key), $value); } }

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