Laravel API Caster

Convert API response results to Entity objects like Laravel Eloquent. This package provides a powerful and flexible way to transform API responses into structured, type-safe entities with support for casting, mapping, data transformation, and enhanced collection handling with metadata support.

Features

• 🚀 Laravel Eloquent-like API - Familiar syntax for Laravel developers
• 🔄 Automatic Type Casting - Built-in support for common data types
• 🎯 Custom Casters - Create your own casting logic
• 📦 Entity Mapping - Map nested data to Entity objects
• 🔧 Flexible Configuration - Includes, excludes, renames, and more
• 📊 Collection with Meta - Enhanced collections with metadata support
• 🛡️ Type-Safe Collections - Complete type validation for all collection operations
• 🧪 Fully Tested - Comprehensive test suite with 84.79% coverage
• ⚡ High Performance - Optimized for speed and memory efficiency
• 🔒 Type Safe - Full PHP 8.3+ type declarations

Requirements

• PHP 8.3 or 8.4
• Laravel 10.x, 11.x, or 12.x

Installation

You can install the package via composer:

composer require mellivora/laravel-api-caster

Quick Start

Basic Usage

use Mellivora\Http\Api\Entity;
use Mellivora\Http\Api\Response;

// From HTTP Response
$response = new Response($httpResponse);
$entity = Entity::from($response);

// From array data
$entity = new Entity([
    'id' => 123,
    'name' => 'John Doe',
    'email' => '[email protected]'
]);

// Access data
echo $entity->id;    // 123
echo $entity->name;  // John Doe
echo $entity->email; // [email protected]

Collections

// Create collection from response
$collection = Entity::collectionResponse($response);

// Create collection from array
$collection = Entity::collection([
    ['id' => 1, 'name' => 'User 1'],
    ['id' => 2, 'name' => 'User 2'],
]);

foreach ($collection as $entity) {
    echo $entity->name;
}

Advanced Usage

Type Casting

class UserEntity extends Entity
{
    protected array $casts = [
        'id' => 'int',
        'email_verified_at' => 'datetime',
        'settings' => 'json',
        'score' => 'decimal:2',
        'status' => UserStatusEnum::class,
    ];
}

$user = new UserEntity([
    'id' => '123',
    'email_verified_at' => '2023-01-01 12:00:00',
    'settings' => '{"theme": "dark"}',
    'score' => '95.75',
    'status' => 'active',
]);

// Automatically casted
$user->id;                 // int(123)
$user->email_verified_at;  // Carbon instance
$user->settings;           // array ['theme' => 'dark']
$user->score;              // string '95.75'
$user->status;             // UserStatusEnum::ACTIVE

Entity Mapping

class ProductEntity extends Entity
{
    protected array $mappings = [
        'category' => CategoryEntity::class,
        'tags[]' => TagEntity::class,
    ];
}

$product = new ProductEntity([
    'id' => 1,
    'name' => 'Laptop',
    'category' => ['id' => 1, 'name' => 'Electronics'],
    'tags' => [
        ['id' => 1, 'name' => 'Tech'],
        ['id' => 2, 'name' => 'Gadget'],
    ],
]);

$product->category;        // CategoryEntity instance
$product->tags;            // EntityCollection of TagEntity instances
$product->tags->first();   // TagEntity instance

Field Configuration

class UserEntity extends Entity
{
    // Include only specific fields
    protected array $includes = ['id', 'name', 'email'];
    
    // Exclude specific fields
    protected array $excludes = ['password', 'secret'];
    
    // Rename fields
    protected array $renames = [
        'user_id' => 'id',
        'full_name' => 'name',
    ];
    
    // Append computed attributes
    protected array $appends = ['display_name'];
    
    public function getDisplayNameAttribute(): string
    {
        return $this->name . ' (' . $this->email . ')';
    }
}

Custom Casters

use Mellivora\Http\Api\Contracts\Castable;
use Mellivora\Http\Api\Contracts\CastsAttributes;

class MoneyCaster implements Castable
{
    public static function castUsing(array $arguments): CastsAttributes
    {
        return new class implements CastsAttributes {
            public function getCastValue(Entity $entity, string $key, $value): Money
            {
                return new Money($value);
            }
            
            public function fromCastValue(Entity $entity, string $key, mixed $value): int
            {
                return $value->getCents();
            }
        };
    }
}

class OrderEntity extends Entity
{
    protected array $casts = [
        'total' => MoneyCaster::class,
    ];
}

Available Cast Types

Type	Description	Example
int, integer	Cast to integer	'123' → 123
float, double, real	Cast to float	'12.34' → 12.34
string	Cast to string	123 → '123'
bool, boolean	Cast to boolean	1 → true
array	Cast JSON to array	'[1,2,3]' → [1,2,3]
json	Alias for array	Same as array
object	Cast JSON to object	'{"a":1}' → stdClass
collection	Cast to Collection	[1,2,3] → Collection
date	Cast to Carbon date	'2023-01-01' → Carbon
datetime	Cast to Carbon datetime	'2023-01-01 12:00:00' → Carbon
timestamp	Cast timestamp to Carbon	1672574400 → Carbon
decimal:2	Cast to decimal string	12.345 → '12.35'
date:Y-m-d	Custom date format	Custom format
datetime:Y-m-d H:i	Custom datetime format	Custom format

Testing

composer test

Code Quality

# Run all quality checks
composer quality

# Fix code style
composer phpcs-fix

# Run static analysis
composer phpstan

# Run rector
composer rector-fix

API Documentation

Entity Class

Methods

• __construct(iterable $attributes = [], array $meta = []) - Create new entity
• from(Response $response): static - Create from Response object
• collection(iterable $items, array $meta = []): Collection - Create collection
• collectionResponse(Response $response): Collection - Create collection from Response
• toArray(): array - Convert to array
• toJson(int $options = 0): string - Convert to JSON
• keys(): array - Get all keys
• values(): array - Get all values
• isEmpty(): bool - Check if empty
• copy(): static - Create a copy
• meta(string $key = null, mixed $default = null): mixed - Get meta data
• origin(string $key = null, mixed $default = null): mixed - Get original data

Response Class

Methods

• __construct(HttpResponse|MessageInterface $response) - Create new response
• code(): int - Get response code
• message(): string - Get response message
• data(string $key = null, mixed $default = null): mixed - Get response data
• meta(string $key = null, mixed $default = null): mixed - Get response meta
• toArray(): array - Convert to array

Caster Class

Methods

• cast(string $cast, mixed $value): mixed - Cast value
• value(string $cast, mixed $value): mixed - Get original value

Best Practices

1. Use Type Hints: Always define proper types in your entity classes
2. Leverage Caching: Cache frequently used entities to improve performance
3. Validate Data: Use Laravel's validation before creating entities
4. Handle Nulls: Always consider null values in your casting logic
5. Test Thoroughly: Write tests for your custom entities and casters

Performance Tips

• Use includes to limit processed fields
• Avoid deep nesting when possible
• Cache entity instances for repeated use
• Use collections for bulk operations

Troubleshooting

Common Issues

Issue: "Class not found" error when using custom casters Solution: Ensure your caster class implements the Castable interface

Issue: Infinite recursion with circular references Solution: Use excludes to break circular references

Issue: Memory issues with large datasets Solution: Process data in chunks using collections

License

The MIT License (MIT). Please see License File for more information.