Laravel Helpers Laravel Package

Getting Started

Install via Composer: composer require ralphjsmit/laravel-helpers. No service provider or config publishing is required—helpers are auto-loaded via the package’s helpers.php file (PSR-4 autoloading in src/Helpers). The first use case is typically replacing verbose conditional checks with helpers like present() (returns formatted value if not null) or blank_or() (returns fallback for null/blank values), e.g. present($user->email) ?? 'No email'.

Implementation Patterns

• Inline formatting: Use present(), number(), currency(), or truncate() directly in Blade or controllers to avoid @if/else chains and keep templates concise.
• Null-safe transformations: Replace ternary null-checks with blank_or($value, 'default') or filled_or($value, 'fallback').
• Array/Collection shortcuts: Leverage array_get_path($array, 'user.profile.name') for nested access or array_only_keys($array, ['name', 'email']) for filtering without array_filter boilerplate.
• Validation helpers: Integrate unique_without() (for validation rules excluding current model) directly in request validation.
• Team consistency: Commit common helper usage in style guides—e.g., “always use starts_with($str, $prefix) instead of Str::startsWith() for brevity in internal code.”

Gotchas and Tips

• Helpers are global functions—avoid naming conflicts with existing helpers (e.g., Laravel’s str_replace_first). This package extends Laravel helpers but doesn’t override them.
• Some functions behave differently from PHP native equivalents: e.g., blank() considers 0, '0', '', and [] as blank, while empty() does not. Always check the docblock or tests if behavior is ambiguous.
• Not all helpers support PHP 8.0–8.4 uniformly—review src/Helpers/ for signature compatibility (e.g., typed returns using |null/|false).
• To extend: add custom helpers in app/helpers.php, but do not rely on this package for custom logic—reserve it for standardized small utilities only.
• For debugging: use dd_safe() or dump_safe() to avoid issues with circular references or objects that can’t be serialized.