README

Laravel has built-in casting for date & datetime types, but if you want to use ISO 8061 durations with the native DateInterval class, or Carbon's CarbonInterval you're out of luck.

This package provides two custom casts (for DateInterval and CarbonInterval respectively) using Laravel 7.x/8.x's custom casts feature.

Installation

composer require atymic/laravel-dateinterval-cast

Using this package

In your model's $casts, assign the property you wish to enable casting on to either of the casts provided by the package. You should use a varchar/string field in your database table.

class TestModel extends Model
{
    /**
     * The attributes that should be cast to native types.
     *
     * @var array
     */
    protected $casts = [
        'is_xyz' => 'boolean',
        'date_interval' => DateIntervalCast::class,
        'carbon_interval' => CarbonIntervalCast::class,
    ];
}

The property on the model will then be cast to an interval object, and saved to the database as a ISO 8061 duration string. If you try to assign an invalid duration (or the database table contains one, and you use a getter) an exception is thrown.

$model = new TestModel();

$model->carbon_interval = now()->subHours(3)->diffAsCarbonInterval();

$model->save(); // Saved as `P3H`
$model->fresh();

$model->carbon_interval; // Instance of `CarbonInterval`
$model->carbon_interval->forHumans(); // prints '3 hours ago'

try {
    $model->carbon_interval = 'not_a_iso_period'; 
} catch (\Atymic\DateIntervalCast\Exception\InvalidIsoDuration $e) {
    // Exception thrown if you try to assign an invalid duration
}

Contributing

Contributions welcome :) Please create a PR and i'll review/merge it.

Licence

MIT