Laravel: saving a serialized copy of my model for history - php

Question

I need to manage record history for a specific model(s).
So following the example here (https://laravel.com/docs/5.2/eloquent#events) I did something like this in my AppServiceProvider.php file:
use App\SourceModel;
use App\History;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Auth;
use Illuminate\Support\ServiceProvider;
class AppServiceProvider extends ServiceProvider {
/**
* Bootstrap any application services.
*
* #return void
*/
public function boot()
{
SourceModel::saving(function ($source) {
$his= new History();
$his->record = $source->toJson();
$his->user_id = Auth::User()->id;
$his->saved_id = $source->id;
$his->saved_type = 'App\SourceModel';
$his->save();
});
}
...
The problem is in this way Auth::User() returns NULL...
How can I solve this problem? is there a way to make Auth working in appserviceprovider or should i move my saving event somewhere else?

Answer 1

Since this closure is called when the model is saving, I would expect this to work assuming there is an authenticated user.
I was able to confirm this does work using tinker:
>>> App\User::saving(function ($user) { echo "AUTH USER ID: " . Auth::user()->id; });
=> null
>>> Auth::login(App\User::find(1));
=> null
>>> App\User::find(1)->save();
AUTH USER ID: 1⏎
=> true
Therefore, I would say that if Auth::user() returns null, this model was saved without an authenticated user and if that can happen you need to add a check:
SourceModel::saving(function ($source) {
$his= new History();
$his->record = $source->toJson();
$his->user_id = (Auth::check()) ? Auth::User()->id : 0;
$his->saved_id = $source->id;
$his->saved_type = 'App\SourceModel';
$his->save();
});

Answer 2

I think the right place to listen model events are EventServiceProvider ( App\Providers\EventServiceProvider ).
Simply move your code to "boot" method in EventServiceProvider and you are done.
<?php
namespace App\Providers;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Support\Providers\EventServiceProvider as ServiceProvider;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Event;
use App\SourceModel;
use App\History;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Auth;
class EventServiceProvider extends ServiceProvider
{
/**
* The event listener mappings for the application.
*
* #var array
*/
protected $listen = [
'App\Events\SomeEvent' => [
'App\Listeners\EventListener',
],
];
/**
* Register any events for your application.
*
* #return void
*/
public function boot()
{
parent::boot();
//
SourceModel::saving(function ($source) {
$his= new History();
$his->record = $source->toJson();
$his->user_id = Auth::User()->id;
$his->saved_id = $source->id;
$his->saved_type = 'App\SourceModel';
$his->save();
});
}
}
Note: you can include facades like this: "use \Auth"