Seeding database with random states in Laravel - php

Question

I have a Laravel 8 application and I want to be able to seed one of my tables with different states when I execute php artisan db:seed. Here's an example table:
Create Table: CREATE TABLE `notifications` (
`id` bigint(20) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`message` varchar(255) COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci NOT NULL,
`is_read` tinyint(1) NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',
`recipient_role` enum('Manager','Employee') COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci NOT NULL DEFAULT 'Manager',
`recipient_id` bigint(20) unsigned NOT NULL,
`sender_id` bigint(20) unsigned NOT NULL,
`created_at` timestamp NULL DEFAULT NULL,
`updated_at` timestamp NULL DEFAULT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`id`),
KEY `notifications_recipient_id_foreign` (`recipient_id`),
KEY `notifications_sender_id_foreign` (`sender_id`),
CONSTRAINT `notifications_recipient_id_foreign` FOREIGN KEY (`recipient_id`) REFERENCES `users` (`id`),
CONSTRAINT `notifications_sender_id_foreign` FOREIGN KEY (`sender_id`) REFERENCES `users` (`id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8mb4 COLLATE=utf8mb4_unicode_ci
In this particular case, I want to create several Notification instances using Notification::factory where is_read is random set to 1 OR 0. I also would like to make sure that two random User instances are selected (they will be seeded first) for the recipient_id and sender_id. This means I cannot hard code them into my Factory.
In the actual factory I only have message being filled in:
<?php
namespace Database\Factories;
use App\Models\Notification;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Factories\Factory;
class NotificationFactory extends Factory
{
/**
* The name of the factory's corresponding model.
*
* #var string
*/
protected $model = Notification::class;
/**
* Define the model's default state.
*
* #return array
*/
public function definition()
{
return [
//
'message' => $this->faker->sentence,
];
}
}
My question is, in the NotificationSeeder.php definition, how do I ensure that I have a random is_read state and two different users assigned to recipient_id and sender_id?

Answer 1

I don't have experience with Laravel 8, but I think it should work:
NotificationFactory:
public function definition()
{
// Get 2 random users IDs
$users = User::inRandomOrder()->take(2)->pluck('id');
return [
'message' => $this->faker->sentence,
'is_read' => rand(0, 1),
'recipient_id' => $users->first(),
'sender_id' => $users->last(),
];
}
If you create the users first, then just get 2 random users. I did 1 call to get 2 users instead of 1 call per user. That returns a collection of users IDs, get the first one for "recipient_id" and the last one to "sender_id".

Answer 2

Use faker's numberBetween function to get a random number between 0-1.
https://github.com/fzaninotto/Faker#fakerproviderbase
<?php
namespace Database\Factories;
use App\Models\Notification;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Factories\Factory;
class NotificationFactory extends Factory
{
/**
* The name of the factory's corresponding model.
*
* #var string
*/
protected $model = Notification::class;
/**
* Define the model's default state.
*
* #return array
*/
public function definition()
{
return [
//
'message' => $this->faker->sentence,
'is_read' => $this->faker->numberBetween(0, 1),
];
}
}
Then when you're creating the notifications, first create your user's, then provide them to the make/create method.
// create two users
$first = User::factory()->count(1)->create();
$second = User::factory()->count(1)->create();
// override the default notification attributes with the user's id
$notification = Notification::factory()->count(1)->create([
'recipient_id' => $first->id,
'sender_id' => $second->id,
]);