Model Inheritance in Laravel

Question

i\'m currently working with Laravel and I\'m struggling with the fact that every model needs to extend from Eloquent and I\'m not sure how to implement a model Hierarchy

Answer 1

Note: You can't use an abstract class directly, it has to be extended by a child class

If your Tool (abstract) model doesn't have any table mapped to it then you don't need to use Tool::all and you can't directly use/instantiate an abstract model but you may use an that abstract model as a base class like this:

abstract class Tool extends Eloquent {

    protected $validator = null;
    protected $errors = null;
    protected $rules = array();

    // Declare common methods here that
    // will be used by both child models, for example:

    public static function boot()
    {
        parent::boot();
        static::saving(function($model)
        {
            if(!$this->isvalid($model->toArray(), $this->rules) return false;
        });
    }

    protected function isvalid($inputs, $rules)
    {
        // return true/false
        $this->validator = Validator::make($inputs, $rules);
        if($this->validator->passes()) return true;
        else {
            $this->errors = $this->validator->errors();
            return false;
        }
    }

    public function getErrors()
    {
        return $this->errors;
    }

    public function hasErrors()
    {
        return count($this->errors);
    }

    // declare any abstract method (method header only)
    // that every child model needs to implement individually
}

class Hammer extends Tool {
    protected $table = 'hammers';
    protected $fillable = array(...);
    protected $rules = array(...); // Declare own rules

}

class Screwdriver extends Tool {
    protected $table = 'screwdrivers';
    protected $fillable = array(...);
    protected $rules = array(...); // Declare own rules
}

Use Hammer and Screwdriver directly but never the Tool model/class because it's an abstract class, for example:

$hammers = Hammer:all();

Or maybe something like this:

$screwdriver = Screwdriver:create(Input::all());
if($screwdrivers->hasErrors()) {
    return Redirect::back()->withInput()->withErrors($screwdriver->getErrors());
}
return Redirect::route('Screwdriver.index');