Userstamps Laravel Package

About Laravel Userstamps

Laravel Userstamps provides an Eloquent trait which automatically maintains created_by and updated_by columns on your model, populated by the currently authenticated user in your application.

When using the Laravel SoftDeletes trait, a deleted_by column is also handled by this package.

Installing

This package requires Laravel 9 or later running on PHP 8.2 or higher.

This package can be installed using composer:

composer require wildside/userstamps

Usage

Your model will need to include a created_by and updated_by column, defaulting to null.

If using the Laravel SoftDeletes trait, it will also need a deleted_by column.

The column type should match the type of the ID column in your user's table.

Userstamp columns can be created using:

$table->userstamps();
$table->userstampSoftDeletes();

Equivalent methods are also available when working with UUIDs.

$table->userstampsUuid();
$table->userstampsUuidSoftDeletes();

You can now load the trait within your model, and userstamps will automatically be maintained:

use Mattiverse\Userstamps\Traits\Userstamps;

class Foo extends Model {

    use Userstamps;
}

Optionally, should you wish to override the names of the created_by, updated_by or deleted_by columns, you can do so by setting the appropriate class constants on your model. Ensure you match these column names in your migration.

use Mattiverse\Userstamps\Traits\Userstamps;

class Foo extends Model {

    use Userstamps;

    const CREATED_BY = 'alt_created_by';
    const UPDATED_BY = 'alt_updated_by';
    const DELETED_BY = 'alt_deleted_by';
}

When using this trait, helper relationships are available to let you retrieve the user who created, updated and deleted (when using the Laravel SoftDeletes trait) your model.

$model->creator; // the user who created the model
$model->editor; // the user who last updated the model
$model->destroyer; // the user who deleted the model

Methods are also available to temporarily stop the automatic maintaining of userstamps on your models:

$model->stopUserstamping(); // stops userstamps being maintained on the model
$model->startUserstamping(); // resumes userstamps being maintained on the model

Resolving Users

By default users will be resolved using the Laravel Auth::id() method, to return the ID of the currently authenticated user.

More advanced use-cases are supported with a custom resolution strategy.

In this example, a custom resolution method is called to retrieve the ID.

use Mattiverse\Userstamps\Userstamps;

Userstamps::resolveUsing(
    fn () => auth()->user()->customUserIdResolutionMethod()
);

The Userstamps::resolveUsing method is likely best suited to the boot method of AppServiceProvider.

Workarounds

This package works by hooking into Eloquent's model event listeners, and is subject to the same limitations of all such listeners.

When you make changes to models that bypass Eloquent, the event listeners won't be fired and userstamps will not be updated.

Commonly this will happen if bulk updating or deleting models, or their relations.

In this example, model relations are updated via Eloquent and userstamps will be maintained:

$model->foos->each(function ($item) {
    $item->bar = 'x';
    $item->save();
});

However in this example, model relations are bulk updated and bypass Eloquent. Userstamps will not be maintained:

$model->foos()->update([
    'bar' => 'x',
]);

As a workaroud to this issue two helper methods are available - updateWithUserstamps and deleteWithUserstamps. Their behaviour is identical to update and delete, but they ensure the updated_by and deleted_by properties are maintained on the model.

You generally won't have to use these methods, unless making bulk updates that bypass Eloquent events.

In this example, models are bulk updated and userstamps will not be maintained:

$model->where('name', 'foo')->update([
    'name' => 'bar',
]);

However in this example, models are bulk updated using the helper method and userstamps will be maintained:

$model->where('name', 'foo')->updateWithUserstamps([
    'name' => 'bar',
]);

License

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