README

Laravel Forex is a simple and flexible package for retrieving the latest and historical foreign exchange rates in your Laravel application.

By default, it uses the free tier from exchangerate-api.com, but you can easily configure it to use any other Forex provider.

Contents

• Features
• Requirements
• Installation
• Configuration
• Usage
  • Latest Rates
  • Historical Rates
  • Converting Money
  • Refreshing Rates
• Providers
  • ExchangeRate-Api.com
  • Custom Client
• Caching & Rate Limiting
• Testing
• Changelog
• Contributing
• Security
• Credits
• License

Features

• Retrieve latest exchange rates for any base currency.
• Retrieve historical exchange rates for a specific date.
• Convert Money instances between currencies with high precision using brick/money.
• Built-in caching and optional rate limiting to keep API usage under control.
• Swap the default provider with a custom implementation via a simple interface.

Requirements

• PHP ^8.3
• Laravel ^13.0

Installation

Install the package via Composer:

composer require elegantly/laravel-forex

Publish the configuration file:

php artisan vendor:publish --tag="forex-config"

Configuration

The published configuration file lives at config/forex.php:

use Brick\Math\RoundingMode;
use Elegantly\Forex\Integrations\ExchangeRateApiFree\ExchangeRateApiFreeConnector;

return [

    /**
     * Rounding mode used when converting money.
     */
    'rounding_mode' => RoundingMode::HalfUp,

    'cache' => [
        'enabled' => true,
        'driver' => env('FOREX_CACHE_DRIVER', env('CACHE_STORE', env('CACHE_DRIVER', 'file'))),
        'expiry_seconds' => 86_400, // 1 day
    ],

    'rate_limit' => [
        'enabled' => false,
        'driver' => env('FOREX_RATE_LIMIT_DRIVER', env('CACHE_STORE', env('CACHE_DRIVER', 'file'))),
        'every_seconds' => 3_600, // 1 hour
    ],

    'client' => ExchangeRateApiFreeConnector::class,

    'clients' => [
        'exchange-rate-api' => [
            'token' => env('EXCHANGE_RATE_API_TOKEN'),
        ],
    ],

];

Environment Variables

Usage

All public methods are available through the Forex facade:

use Elegantly\Forex\Facades\Forex;

Latest Rates

Fetch the latest rates for a given base currency:

$rates = Forex::latest('USD');

$usdToEur = $rates['EUR'];

Historical Rates

Fetch historical rates for a specific date:

use Carbon\Carbon;

$rates = Forex::rates(Carbon::create(2022, 4, 25), 'USD');

$usdToEur = $rates['EUR'];

Converting Money

Convert a Money instance from one currency to another:

use Brick\Math\RoundingMode;
use Brick\Money\Money;
use Elegantly\Forex\Facades\Forex;

$convertedMoney = Forex::convert(
    money: Money::of(100, 'USD'),
    currency: 'EUR',
);

$convertedMoney->__toString(); // (EUR) 88.84

You can also convert against historical rates and override the rounding mode:

use Carbon\Carbon;

$convertedMoney = Forex::convert(
    money: Money::of(100, 'USD'),
    currency: 'EUR',
    roundingMode: RoundingMode::Down,
    date: Carbon::create(2022, 4, 25),
);

Refreshing Rates

By default, rates are cached according to your configuration. To bypass the cache and fetch fresh data:

// Refresh latest rates
Forex::refreshLatest('USD');

// Refresh historical rates
Forex::refreshRates(Carbon::create(2022, 4, 25), 'USD');

Providers

ExchangeRate-Api.com

The package ships with two ready-to-use connectors for exchangerate-api.com:

• ExchangeRateApiFreeConnector — uses the free public endpoint. Rates are updated once a day and historical data is not supported.
• ExchangeRateApiConnector — uses the authenticated v6 API. Requires a token and supports historical rates.

To use the paid connector, update your config:

use Elegantly\Forex\Integrations\ExchangeRateApi\ExchangeRateApiConnector;

'client' => ExchangeRateApiConnector::class,

And add your token to .env:

EXCHANGE_RATE_API_TOKEN=your-api-token

Custom Client

Want to use a different provider? Implement the ForexClient interface:

use Carbon\CarbonInterface;
use Elegantly\Forex\ForexClient;

class MyCustomForexClient implements ForexClient
{
    public function latest(string $currency): array
    {
        // Return an associative array of currency code => rate
    }

    public function rates(CarbonInterface $date, string $currency): array
    {
        // Return historical rates for the given date
    }
}

Then set it as the active client:

'client' => \App\Services\MyCustomForexClient::class,

Caching & Rate Limiting

The package uses Saloon's cache and rate-limit plugins to reduce API calls and avoid hitting provider limits.

• Caching is enabled by default and stores responses for the configured expiry_seconds.
• Rate limiting is disabled by default. Enable it to throttle requests to one per every_seconds interval.

Both features use the cache store configured in forex.php.

Testing

Run the test suite with:

composer test

Run the static analysis suite with:

composer analyse

Format the code with:

composer format

Changelog

See the CHANGELOG for details on recent updates.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please read the CONTRIBUTING guide for details.

Security

If you discover any security-related issues, please refer to our security policy.

Credits

• Quentin Gabriele
• All Contributors

License

This package is open-source software licensed under the MIT license.