Laravel Things I Always Lookup

Below is a list of things I frequently need to look up in the Laravel documentation. I’ve created this quick cheat sheet for myself, which you may also find interesting or helpful.

• How to add a foreign key

Schema::table('posts', function (Blueprint $table) {
    $table->foreignId('user_id')->constrained();
});

• Validation rule options

• Table Column options

• firstOrCreate syntax

// Retrieve flight by name or create it if it doesn't exist...
$flight = Flight::firstOrCreate([
    'name' => 'London to Paris'
]);

// Retrieve flight by name or create it with the name, delayed, and arrival_time attributes...
$flight = Flight::firstOrCreate(
    ['name' => 'London to Paris'],
    ['delayed' => 1, 'arrival_time' => '11:30']
);

• upsert syntax

Flight::upsert([
    ['departure' => 'Oakland', 'destination' => 'San Diego', 'price' => 99],
    ['departure' => 'Chicago', 'destination' => 'New York', 'price' => 150]
], uniqueBy: ['departure', 'destination'], update: ['price']);

• Cast method (more specifically, the type declarations)

/**
 * Get the attributes that should be cast.
 *
 * @return array<string, string>
 */
protected function casts(): array
{
    return [
        'is_admin' => 'boolean',
    ];
}

• New attribute syntax

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Casts\Attribute;

/**
 * Get the user's first name.
 */
protected function firstName(): Attribute
{
    return Attribute::make(
        get: fn (string $value) => ucfirst($value),
    );
}

• Pivot table structure (not explicitly in the docs, but I need it enough to list here)

Schema::create('role_user', function (Blueprint $table) {
    $table->foreignId('role_id')->constrained();
    $table->foreignId('user_id')->constrained();

    $table->primary(['role_id', 'user_id']);
});