CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phplaravel
Anton Stafeyev
Anton Stafeyev

Reputation: 831

Laravel Eleoquent model automatic fields

Hi i am new to PHP and Laravel, my question is how does this whole thing with eloquent works.

What i mean is when i create a model class and a migration with it, i can just use it like that Model->title = "value";. How does eloquent models figure out table structure and create member variables within the class.

class Post extends Model
{
  public function author()
  {
    return $this->author;
  }
}

Is there some kind of reflection stuff going on with Schemas created in migrations ? or some polymorphic magic ?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 398

Answers (1)

lagbox
lagbox

Reputation: 50491

They are not member variables. Eloquent doesn't know anything about your schema until it actually queries it. So when the model is retrieved from the database, the selected fields are stored in an array called $attributes.

There is a magic method for objects named __get that is being used here. This is called when you try to access a non accessible property of the object. Since there are no public member variables with the name of the field it calls __get. When you look into that method defined on Model you will see it calls getAttribute.

Just like there is a __get there is a __set magic method for setting non accessible properties. On the model __set calls setAttribute.

I hope this gives you some enlightenment on this subject. There are more things in play like relationships and accessors/mutators but this is the basic idea.

PHP.net Manual - OOP - Property Overloading __get __set

Laravel Framework Github - Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model __get

Laravel Framework Github - Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model __set

Laravel Framework Github - Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Concerns\HasAttributes getAttribute

Laravel Framework Github - Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Concerns\HasAttributes setAttribute

Upvotes: 2

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