How to Set and Get a new attribute in a Model in Laravel 9+

Laravel has unique way to set and get a new or custom attribute in a model. I will explain with help of an example.

Accessors (Getters) and Mutators (Setters) in Laravel

Mutators

Mutators are used to transform model attributes. See the example below:

protected function name(): Attribute
{
    return Attribute::make(
        get: fn (string $value) => strtolower($value)
    );
}

...
$user = User::find(1);
echo $user->name; //prints name in lower case

Accessors

For example you have first_name and last_name fields in your database table. In the result model you want a full_name column in addition to first_name and last_name. This is how it is achieved:

First, define an accessor method in your User.php model

protected function fullName(): Attribute
{
    return Attribute::make(
        get: fn (mixed $value, array $attributes) =>  $attributes['first_name'] . ' ' . $attributes['last_name']
    );
}

Then append full_name attribute into the result model. There are three different ways to append new attributes.

1. Defining $appends array in the User.php model

   protected $appends = ['full_name'];

2. Calling append method on the resultant model.

   $user->append('full_name');
   return $user;

3. Calling setAppends method on the resultant model.

   $user->setAppends(['full_name']);
   return $user;

   Note: Calling this method will overwrite model’s $appends array or any previous $model->append(‘full_name’) calls.

Modify or setting values before saving into database

For example you have a password field in users table. Just before saving values received from a form request you would want to hash it. This is how it can be done via attribute setter inside a model in Laravel.

public function setPasswordAttribute( $pass ) {
    $this->attributes['password'] = Hash::make( $pass );
}

Conclusion: Mutators, Accessors and predefined hook methods of Model can be used to transform model’s attributes or crease new custom attributes in different ways.

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