Is it mandatory to visit Mutator/Accessor?

Question

I just faced a problem in Laravel 5.1.

Suppose I have the following:

Model

class User extends Model{

   # Mutator

   public function getNomeUpperAttribute(){
       return strtoupper($this->attributes['nome']);
   }

}

Controller

public function index(){

   $user = User::find(1);

   $user->nome_upper;

}

Return

UPPERCASE NAME

But let’s assume I did a JOIN for Eloquent and nay select the field name table Users.

public function index(){

   $user = User::join('enderecos', 'enderecos.id_user', '=', 'users.id')
                 ->select('rua', 'bairro', 'numero', 'cep')
                 ->where('id_user', '=', 1)
                 ->first();

}

When this happens the page gives an error:

Undefined index 'name';

This happens because it enters the function I defined in the Model Users.

To make no mistake, I have to make a check like this:

public function getNomeUpperAttribute(){
    if(array_key_exists('nome', $this->attributes))
        return strtoupper($this->attributes['nome']);
    else
        return null;
}

But imagine that I have several Accessors to customize various fields. I would have to do this check on all.

The question is:

Is it really necessary ? There is no other way ?

Answer 1

A little correction: It’s not called Mutator, and yes Accessor.

Mutator is to set the attribute, Accessor is to access.

In some frameworks that have the same purpose as a Accessor provides, this is called Virtual Field.

The use of Accessor is limited to cases where you need a specific formatting of a given field of your table. There are possibilities of returning other types of information, but usually you will want to use them to work with table-specific data.

So whenever you need to format a particular field of the result of a query, you will need it to be selected via select.

In your case, the mistake Undefined Indexoccurs because the field has not been selected.

Answering your question: Yes, you would need to check every time, what not my view is not a problem, since you define a method only once, but reuse throughout your application.

Another detail: Instead of using $this->attributes['valor'], you can use $this->valor directly.

public function getNomeUpperAttribute(){
   return strtoupper($this->nome);
}

The only observation I make in case you want to use the property directly instead of the property attributes is that if you define a method with the same name of the field you are accessing, it will generate a infinite recursiveness.

Example:

public function getNomeAttribute(){
   // Gera recursão, pois internamente será chamado o mesmo método
   return strtoupper($this->nome); 
}

Then, the hint to use the property directly, only valid if the Accessor name is different from the attribute accessed.