Codeigniter 4 Entity Property cast as array not autoserializing - php

Question

I'm trying to cast an entity property into an array so that it autoserializes.
The Entity is set up as follows
\App\Entities\Submission.php
<?php
namespace App\Entities;
use CodeIgniter\Entity;
class Submission extends Entity
{
protected $casts =[
'field2' => 'array'
];
}
Then in a controller I create a new entity, filling it using the constructor
<?php
$allowedFromPost = [
'field1'=>'value1',
'field2'=>[0,1],
];
$submission = new \App\Entities\Submission($allowedFromPost);
?>
Dumping the submission at this point (var_dump()) shows field2 being an array, it's not serialised.
["attributes":protected]=>
array(2) {
["field1"]=>
string(6) "value1"
["field2"]=>
array(2) {
[0]=>
int(0)
[1]=>
int(1)
}
}
if I do
$allowedFromPost = [
'field1'=>'value1',
'field2'=>[0,1],
];
$submission = new \App\Entities\Submission($allowedFromPost);
$submission->field2 = $submission->field2;
and then var_dump, field2 is correctly serialised.
["attributes":protected]=>
array(2) {
["field1"]=>
string(6) "value1"
["field2"]=>
string(22) "a:2:{i:0;i:0;i:1;i:1;}"
}
For some reason, it seems like filling using the constructor does not autoserialize, I have to manually set the field. Am I doing something wrong?
The problem this caused is that when I tried inserting that entity into the Database, it threw an error saying
"mysqli_sql_exception Operand should contain 1 column(s)"
which went away when I flattened the array (first by dropping all but one values to test and then by using what I've done above)
================
EDIT 11/05: This turned out to be an issue on the core code. fill() (and the constructor) were not configured to use __set() so autoserialization was not happening. See the PR on Codeigniter's Github page here.
I'll be accepting Kulshreshth K's answer because, for now, this provides an adequate workaround but in the future it will most likely not be needed.

Answer 1

Add this in your Entity:
public function __construct($arr) {
$this->field2 = $arr['field2'];
}
Controller:
$allowedFromPost = [
'field1'=>'value1',
'field2'=>[0,1],
];
$submission = new \App\Entities\Submission($allowedFromPost);
var_dump($submission)
Result:
["attributes":protected]=>
array(2) {
["field1"]=>
string(6) "value1"
["field2"]=>
string(22) "a:2:{i:0;i:0;i:1;i:1;}"
}
As per CI documentation you need to set it after initialize its model anyway:
<?php namespace App\Entities;
use CodeIgniter\Entity;
class User extends Entity
{
protected $casts => [
'options' => 'array',
'options_object' => 'json',
'options_array' => 'json-array'
];
}
$user = $userModel->find(15);
$options = $user->options;
$options['foo'] = 'bar';
$user->options = $options;
$userModel->save($user);