Laravel / Eloquent: how to hook into the deletion process? - php

Question

When a record gets deleted from my_items_table I want to insert the record into my_items_table_archive.
I could do this on each Controller, but would prefer to hook into the Eloquent model.
Is there anything like this?
Pseudocode:
class MyItem extends Model {
protected function beforeDelete($record) {
MyItemArchive::create($record); // add record the archive
return true; // continue deletion of $record
}
}
Any idea? Thanks!

Answer 1

Yes, there is something similar to your pseudocode.
You can utilise Eloquent Events
A good example of this can be seen below:
protected $dispatchesEvents = [
'deleted' => UserDeleted::class,
'deleting' => UserDeleting::class
];
The class in question just needs to adhere to / Follow: Listeners
You can also use Eloquent Observers / the observer pattern to achieve a similar result.
Let me know how you get on!

Answer 2

First of all create a new Observer using
php artisan make:observer MyItemObserver
Then
<?php
namespace App\Observers;
class MyItemObserver
{
public function deleting(MyItem $myItem)
{
/// insert new record here
}
}
Now you in your appServiceProvider
class AppServiceProvider extends ServiceProvider
{
/**
* Bootstrap any application services.
*
* #return void
*/
public function boot()
{
MyItem::observe(MyItemObserver::class);
}
/**
* Register the service provider.
*
* #return void
*/
public function register()
{
//
}
}
Now your obverserver will be hooked to Model Events.
Hope this helps.

Answer 3

As described in the official documentation you have two choices using the events. The first one is creating an observer like this:
class MyModelObserver
{
/**
* Listen to the Model deleting event.
*
* #param User $user
* #return void
*/
public function deleting(User $user)
{
// HERE YOUR CODE TO TRANSFER THE MODEL
}
}
Than you have to register it on your AppServiceProvider
public function boot {
MyModel::observe(MyModelObserver::class)
}
Otherwise you can add these events in your model by generating the specific class:
protected $dispatchesEvents = [
'deleting' => MyModelDeletingEvent::class,
];
Anyway if you're using a version of laravel lower than 5.4 you should check the documentation for the specific implementation, since the $dispatchesEvents is not available as variable.