laravel: how to set my resource to give empty string instead of null

Question

I've got a database with nullable fields. When I send my values via api resource, laravel is sending null values. I want to get empty strings instead. How can I set it up?

example:

<?php

namespace App\Http\Resources;

use Illuminate\Http\Resources\Json\Resource;

class RequirementResource extends Resource
{
    /**
     * Transform the resource into an array.
     *
     * @param  \Illuminate\Http\Request  $request
     * @return array
     */
    public function toArray($request)
    {
        return [
            'active' => $this->active,
            'person' => $this->person, //sometimes has null value
            'edit' => false,
            'buttons' => false,
            'text' => $this->text, //sometimes has null value
        ];
    }
}

I want a json object:

{"active": false, "person": "", "edit": false, "buttons": false, "text": ""}

instead I've got:

{"active": false, "person": null, "edit": false, "buttons": false, "text": null}

Terrill

How about $this->text !== null ? $this->text : '' ? (same for person) – Setscrew

@Setscrew inside return? – Terrill

Yes. The idea is to return an empty string instead of a null if those values are null. (Keep in mind this will make it impossible to distinguish whether the real value is actually an empty string or a null) – Setscrew

@Setscrew oh, this is working – Terrill

@Setscrew you may put an answer – Terrill

Here's a shorter version: $this->text ?: '' – Acrocarpous

Does this answer your question? If null use other variable in one line in PHP – Manchukuo

Answer 1

There's a greater question that comes into play here and it's whether your field should be nullable to begin with. Normally you could solve this by not having the field to be nullable which will force you to put an empty string in at insert/update time instead of when displaying it. However I do realise that it's not unreasonable to allow nulls in the database but never return them when returning the resource.

This being said you can solve your problem as follows:

<?php

namespace App\Http\Resources;

use Illuminate\Http\Resources\Json\Resource;

class RequirementResource extends Resource
{
    public function toArray($request)
    {
        return [
            'active' => $this->active,
            'person' => $this->person !== null ? $this->person : '',
            'edit' => false,
            'buttons' => false,
            'text' => $this->text !== null ? $this->text : '', 
        ];
    }
}

As Dvek mentioned this can be shortened to $this->text ? : '' but there's a small caveat that $this->text ? : '' will return '' for all values of $this->text which are falsey and not necessarily null. In your particular case since text is either a string or null it will be the same but this is not always true.

Setscrew

from array_walk to loop´s and array_maps...this is for me the best choice that one can use...i´ve searching a lot for this kind of clean and easy solution...i just wanted to thank you even if it was not my post. regards – Ephebe

Answer 2

if you use php 7 then you should be able to use the double question mark operator:

<?php

namespace App\Http\Resources;

use Illuminate\Http\Resources\Json\Resource;

class RequirementResource extends Resource
{
    /**
     * Transform the resource into an array.
     *
     * @param  \Illuminate\Http\Request  $request
     * @return array
     */
    public function toArray($request)
    {
        return [
            'active' => $this->active,
            'person' => $this->person ?? '', //sometimes has null value
            'edit' => false,
            'buttons' => false,
            'text' => $this->text ?? '', //sometimes has null value
        ];
    }
}

Zarger

Answer 3

You can solved with your's database structure ;

$table->string('person')->default('');

Bazluke

Answer 4

Change your column & Set empty string as default value for that column. Then when you save any column without any value, it will store empty string for it.

Grenade

do you mean I should change in my migration: $table->string('person')->nullable(); into: $table->string('person')->default("");? – Terrill

yes, but after fresh migration this is giving me an error when I try to put empty value into this column: "message": "SQLSTATE[23000]: Integrity constraint violation: 1048 Column 'person' cannot be null (SQL: insert into requirements` (offer_id, active, person, text, updated_at, created_at) values (51, 1, , some text)` – Terrill

can you please try $table->string('person')->default('""');? – Grenade

I have tried it using $table->string('name')->nullable()->default('""'); & it's saving "" when saving any data to db using tinker. – Grenade

it also works if you try $table->string('name')->nullable()->default('');, I have tried it too. – Grenade

if a column is nullable, regardless what the default value is, if you provide a NULL it will save a NULL. The default comes into play if you don't provide any value for it. – Setscrew

share your migration with us. what is your database? I have tested it using mysql – Grenade

if you send null, then it will save null. In that case, you need to check that value before saving it. something like this 'text' => $this->text == null ? '' :$this->text – Grenade

@Grenade I'm sending values (51, 1, , some text) so it is null (from laravel perspective) my json looks like { "id": "51", "active":true, "person": "", "text": "some text here"} , using standard mysql, standard migrations as above, nothing special – Terrill

Answer 5

You Can Try this solution this will convert every value in nested array null to an empty string

array_walk_recursive($array, function (&$item) { $item = strval($item);});

Macaroni

Answer 6

You just need to add ( string ) before any nullable field in your resource it convert into empty string 'person' => ( string )$this->person

Goring

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