The problem is caused by the fact that the Model's toArray() method ignores any accessors which do not directly relate to a column in the underlying table.
As Taylor Otwell mentioned here, "This is intentional and for performance reasons." However there is an easy way to achieve this:
class EventSession extends Eloquent {
protected $table = 'sessions';
protected $appends = array('availability');
public function getAvailabilityAttribute()
{
return $this->calculateAvailability();
}
}Any attributes listed in the $appends property will automatically be included in the array or JSON form of the model, provided that you've added the appropriate accessor.
Old answer (for Laravel versions < 4.08):
The best solution that I've found is to override the toArray() method and either explicity set the attribute:
class Book extends Eloquent {
protected $table = 'books';
public function toArray()
{
$array = parent::toArray();
$array['upper'] = $this->upper;
return $array;
}
public function getUpperAttribute()
{
return strtoupper($this->title);
}
}or, if you have lots of custom accessors, loop through them all and apply them:
class Book extends Eloquent {
protected $table = 'books';
public function toArray()
{
$array = parent::toArray();
foreach ($this->getMutatedAttributes() as $key)
{
if ( ! array_key_exists($key, $array)) {
$array[$key] = $this->{$key};
}
}
return $array;
}
public function getUpperAttribute()
{
return strtoupper($this->title);
}
}
