README

A simple trait to aid Eloquent model version history logging.

Installation

You can install the package via composer:

composer require michaeljmeadows/has-histories

Usage

Add a migration to store your model histories. This should contain all the same fields as your main model table as well as a reference ID to the original model. Your model's history table can be named however your like, but the default convention would be models -> model_histories. We recommend modifying your migrations as shown in this modification of the Laravel Jetstream User migration:

<?php

use Illuminate\Database\Migrations\Migration;
use Illuminate\Database\Schema\Blueprint;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Schema;

return new class extends Migration
{
    private array $tables = [
        'users',
        'user_histories',
    ];

    public function up(): void
    {
        foreach ($this->tables as $tableName) {
            Schema::create($tableName, function (Blueprint $table) use ($tableName) {
                $isHistoriesTable = str($tableName)->contains('histories');

                $table->id();
                if ($isHistoriesTable) {
                    $table->foreignId('user_id');
                }
                $table->string('name');
                $table->string('email');
                $table->timestamp('email_verified_at')->nullable();
                $table->string('password');
                $table->rememberToken();
                $table->foreignId('current_team_id')->nullable();
                $table->string('profile_photo_path', 2048)->nullable();
                $table->timestamps();

                if (! $isHistoriesTable) {
                    $table->unique('email');
                }
            });
        }
    }

    public function down(): void
    {
        foreach ($this->tables as $tableName) {
            Schema::dropIfExists($tableName);
        }
    }
};

Once the migration has been added, you can simply include the trait in your model's definition:

<?php

namespace App\Models;

use michaeljmeadows\Traits\HasHistories;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;

class NewModel extends Model
{
    use HasHistories;
	

Restoring Models

Models can be restored using one of three methods:

$newModel->restorePrevious();
$newModel->restorePreviousIteration(3);
$newModel->restoreBeforeDate('2022-01-01');

These functions return true on success and false if a historic state was not found.

restorePrevious() will restore a model to its previous state in the histories table.

restorePreviousIteration(int $index) will restore a model to a state using zero-based numbering. (i.e. restorePreviousIteration(0) is the same as restorePrevious()).

restoreBeforeDate(DateTimeInterface|string $date) will restore a model to the most recent state before the given $date value using the updated_at and created_at fields.

Restoration Notes

• When restored, a copy of the current model is also saved to the histories table.
• HasHistories uses the history table id field to assess the most recent state, as multiple restorations can lead to apparent duplicates appearing in the histories table.

Customising Behaviour

Ignored Fields

Not every change to a model's attributes is worth logging. In the Jetstream User example above, it may be that you'd rather ignore changes to email_verified_at. In this case, you can add a protected array attribute $ignoredFields to your model specifying which attributes you're not interested in:

<?php

namespace App\Models;

use michaeljmeadows\Traits\HasHistories;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;

class User extends Model
{
    use HasHistories;
	
    protected array $ignoredFields = [
        'email_verified_at',
    ];

If you choose to ignore fields these should not be included in the history table migration.

Histories Table Name

By default, HasHistories uses the naming convention models -> model_histories when determining the history table name, but if for whatever reason that doesn't work for you, you can specify a different history table name by adding a protected string attribute $historiesTable to your model:

<?php

namespace App\Models;

use michaeljmeadows\Traits\HasHistories;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;

class User extends Model
{
    use HasHistories;
	
    protected string $historyTable = 'user_logging'; // Instead of 'user_histories'.

Histories Table Model Reference

By default, HasHistories associates an entry in the history table with a model with an attribute in the form models -> model_id, but if for whatever reason that doesn't work for you, you can specify a different field by adding a protected string attribute $historiesModelIdReference:

<?php

namespace App\Models;

use michaeljmeadows\Traits\HasHistories;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;

class User extends Model
{
    use HasHistories;
	
    protected string $historiesModelIdReference = 'user_model_id'; // Instead of 'user_id'.

Histories Table Connection

By default, HasHistories expects that the history table will use the same connection as the model to which it is applied. Occasionally you may want to specify a different connection for your history table. This can be done with an optional parameter in your saveHistory method call:

<?php

namespace App\Observers;

use App\Models\NewModel;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Auth;

class NewModelObserver
{
    public function creating(NewModel $newModel): void
    {
        $newModel->saveHistory('sqlite');
    }

When restoring models, the same connection parameter can be added at the end of each method call:

$newModel->restorePrevious('sqlite');
$newModel->restorePreviousIteration(3, 'sqlite');
$newModel->restoreBeforeDate('2022-01-01', 'sqlite');