Role Model adds some extra functionality to your Laravel 4 Eloquent models, currently focusing on validation. Read the following documentation to get started in minutes.

• Installation
• Usage
  • Validation
• Changelog
• License

Install the package via Composer by requiring it in your composer.json:

"require": {
	"betawax/role-model": "~1.0"
}

Don't forget to run composer install afterwards.

Now rather than extending Eloquent in your model, extend Betawax\RoleModel\RoleModel instead:

class Foobar extends Betawax\RoleModel\RoleModel {
	
}

For your convenience, I recommend to edit your app/config/app.php and add Betawax\RoleModel\RoleModel to the aliases array:

'aliases' => array(
	'RoleModel' => 'Betawax\RoleModel\RoleModel'
)

Now you can simply extend RoleModel in your model:

class Foobar extends RoleModel {
	
}

That's it. Since Role Model extends from Eloquent, you don't have to change anything else in your model. You now can start to use the extra functionality described in the usage section below.

Role Model allows validation to take place in the model rather than the controller. You simply specify validation rules in your model and Role Model then auto-validates your model on each save. The validation itself is done via Laravel's Validation facility.

Define validation rules for your model via the static $rules array:

class Foobar extends RoleModel {
	
	public static $rules = array(
		'name'  => 'required',
		'email' => 'unique:foobar,email,:id:',
	);
	
}

See the validation section in the Laravel documentation for a list of all available validation rules.

Heads up! Note that in the example above :id: is a placeholder that automatically gets replaced by the value of your model's primary key before every validation. This allows the usage of the unique validation rule when updating your model. You're welcome.

Role Model uses Eloquent's model events to hook into your model's lifecycle and auto-validate the model on each save. An example implementation would be:

public function store()
{
	$model = new Foobar;
	$model->name = 'foobar';
	
	if ($model->save())
	{
		// Validation passed
		return Redirect::action('FoobarController@index');
	}
	
	// Validation failed, errors are available via $model->errors()
	return Redirect::action('FoobarController@create')->withInput()->withErrors($model->errors());
}

You retrieve validation errors via the errors() getter:

$model->errors() // Instance of MessageBag or null

Like using Laravel's Validation class directly, the return value from errors() will be an instance of MessageBag or null if there are no validation errors.

To check if a model has validation errors, you use the hasErrors() method:

$model->hasErrors() // true or false

If you just want to validate without saving, you can use the validate() method directly:

$model->validate() // true or false

You can also validate with custom rules by simply passing it to the validate() method:

$rules = array(
	'name' => 'required|min:5'
);

$model->validate($rules);

You can retrieve your model's validation rules without the need to instantiate the whole model:

$model::$rules // array

If you want to force save your model without validation, simply use the forceSave() method instead of save():

$model->forceSave()

• Fix closure mistake introduced in 1.0.1

• Fix object context error in PHP 5.3

• Initial release

Licensed under the MIT license.