Laravel two-way data transformer

Question

I've been looking for a Laravel transformer that will format the fields both ways. Meaning I transform it when I return it to the client and then transform it too before saving it again to the database.

I know I can do this already using Fractal's Transformer but i'm looking for a way (either code or 3rd party library) for the transforming to be automatic. Right now i'm doing it like this for the save functionality:

$data = transform($request->all()); //transforms the input into database field names
$person = Person::create($data);
return response()->json(transform($person), 200); //before returning I transform it to field names needed by client

I'm using a legacy database so the fields I used in the frontend and the database doesn't match. It's also a big app so I think it would be better if there was a way to use a Trait or maybe something like an inheritance from the model level instead of doing the code above from a controller, repository, service.

Answer 1

Use accessors and mutators to get and save the data into DB, while use $maps property on Model to change the fields names for the front end.

class User extends Model
{

    protected $maps = ['name_in_db' => 'name_on_frontend'];
    
    public function getFirstNameAttribute($value)
    {
        return ucfirst($value);
    }

    public function setFirstNameAttribute($value)
    {
        $this->attributes['first_name'] = strtolower($value);
    }
}