Introduction

A simple drop-in solution for providing UUIDv4 support for the IDs of your Eloquent models.

Installing

You can install the package via composer:

composer require goldspecdigital/laravel-eloquent-uuid

Usage

When creating a Eloquent model, instead of extending the standard Laravel model class, extend from the model class provided by this package:

<?php  namespace App\Models;  use GoldSpecDigital\LaravelEloquentUUID\Database\Eloquent\Model;  class BlogPost extends Model {  // }

User model

The User model that comes with a standard Laravel install has some extra configuration which is implemented in its parent class. This configuration only consists of implementing several interfaces and using several traits.

A drop-in replacement has been provided which you can use just as above, by extending the User class provided by this package:

<?php  namespace App\Models;  use GoldSpecDigital\LaravelEloquentUUID\Foundation\Auth\User as Authenticatable;  class User extends Authenticatable {  // }

Generating UUIDs

If you don’t specify the value for the primary key of your model, a UUIDv4 will be automatically generated. However, if you do specify your own UUIDv4 then it will not generate one, but instead use the one you have explicitly provided. This can be useful when needing the know the ID of the model before you have created it:

// No UUID provided (automatically generated). $model = Model::create(); echo $model->id; // abb034ae-fcdc-4200-8094-582b60a4281f  // UUID explicity provided. $model = Model::create(['id' => '04d7f995-ef33-4870-a214-4e21c51ff76e']); echo $model->id; // 04d7f995-ef33-4870-a214-4e21c51ff76e

Running the tests

To run the test suite you can use the following commands:

# To run both style and unit tests. composer test # To run only style tests. composer test:style # To run only unit tests. composer test:unit

If you receive any errors from the style tests, you can automatically fix most, if not all of the issues with the following command:

Contributing

Please read CONTRIBUTING.md for details on our code of conduct, and the process for submitting pull requests to us.

Versioning

We use SemVer for versioning. For the versions available, see the tags on this repository.

Authors

See also the list of contributors who participated in this project.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License – see the LICENSE.md file for details.

Laravel Data Sync

Laravel utility to keep records synced between environments through source control

Installation & Usage

• Via composer: composer require distinctm/laravel-data-sync
• Run php artisan vendor:publish --provider="distinctm\LaravelDataSync\DataSyncBaseServiceProvider" --tag="data-sync-config" to publish config file. Specify directory for sync data files (default is a new sync directory in the project root)
• Create a JSON file for each model, using the model name as the filename. Example: Product.json would update the Product model
• Use nested arrays in place of hardcoded IDs for relationships
• Run php artisan data:sync (or php artisan data:sync --model={model} with the model flag to specify a model)

Optional

If using Laravel Forge, you can have the data sync run automatically on deploy. Edit your deploy script in Site -> App to include:

if [ -f artisan ] then php artisan data:sync php artisan migrate --force fi 

Notes

• use studly case for model name relationships as JSON keys (example: ‘option_group’ => ‘OptionGroup’). This is important for case sensitive file systems.
• empty values are skipped
• the criteria/attributes for updateOrCreate are identified with a leading underscore
• nested values represent relationships and are returned using where($key, $value)->first()->id
• order of import can be set in config/data-sync.php with an array:

return [ 'path' => base_path('sync'), 'order' => [ 'Role', 'Supervisor', ] ]; 

Examples

User.json:

[ { "name": "Ferris Bueller", "properties->title": "Leisure Consultant", "phone_numbers->mobile": "555-555-5555", "phone_numbers->office": "", "_email": "ferris@buellerandco.com", "department": { "name": "Management", "location": { "name": "Chicago" } } } ]

translates to…

User::updateOrCreate([  'email' => 'ferris@buellerandco.com', ],[  'name' => 'Ferris Bueller',  'properties->title' => 'Leisure Consultant',  'phone_numbers->mobile' => '555-555-5555',  'department_id' => Department::where('name', 'Management')  ->where('location_id', Location::where('name', 'Chicago')->first()->id)  ->first()  ->id, ]);

Role.json:

[ { "_slug": "update-student-records" }, { "_slug": "borrow-ferrari" }, { "_slug": "destroy-ferrari" } ]

translates to…

 Role::updateOrCreate(['slug' => 'update-student-records']);   Role::updateOrCreate(['slug' => 'borrow-ferrari']);   Role::updateOrCreate(['slug' => 'destroy-ferrari']);

RoleUser.json (pivot table with model):

[ { "_user": { "email": "ferris@buellerandco.com" }, "_role": { "slug": "update-student-records" } }, { "_user": { "email": "ferris@buellerandco.com" }, "_role": { "slug": "borrow-ferrari" } }, { "_user": { "email": "ferris@buellerandco.com" }, "_role": { "slug": "destroy-ferrari" } } ]

translates to…

 RoleUser::updateOrCreate([  'user_id' => User::where('email', 'ferris@buellerandco.com')->first()->id,  'role_id' => Role::where('slug', 'update-student-records')->first()->id,  ]);   RoleUser::updateOrCreate([  'user_id' => User::where('email', 'ferris@buellerandco.com')->first()->id,  'role_id' => Role::where('slug', 'borrow-ferrari')->first()->id,  ]);   RoleUser::updateOrCreate([  'user_id' => User::where('email', 'ferris@buellerandco.com')->first()->id,  'role_id' => Role::where('slug', 'destroy-ferrari')->first()->id,  ]); 

If you’re a developer using GitHub, you probably have heard of GitHub Actions. GitHub’s new automated workflow system (similar to the CI feature of GitLab). It has been announced in October 2018 and is currently still in beta (You can sign up here to get access).

I recently got access to the beta and began developing Actions suited for my projects. As I currently spend most of my time writing code in PHP, the Actions mentioned in this article are focused on that language. The logic can be easily ported to other languages though.

What are Workflows and Actions and what can I do with them?

A Workflow is a collection of multiple Actions which can be triggered by multiple GitHub webhook events (for example when code is pushed to the repository, a Pull Request has been merged or when a new Issue has been created)

An Action can basically do everything: run your test suite, publish a package to npm, deploy your site to your server, send a Slack message. You name it.
The code for an Action can live in the project repository itself, in a separate public GitHub repository or in a Docker Hub image.

Your Workflow is defined in the main.workflow file in the .github folder in your repository. This means your Actions are written in code and are in version control. If you like to work with a GUI, Workflows and Actions can also be configured and edited in a visual editor on github.com.

In this post I’m going to cover 3 Actions which I think could be useful for PHP developers in their daily workflows:

• Run your phpunit test suite
• Run phpinsights
• Run php-cs-fixer

I’ve published a sample Laravel application, with all three Actions configured, on GitHub. You can clone it, fork it and see for yourself how the Actions are set up.
The process of adding those Actions is documented in this Pull Request.

As mentioned earlier, your Workflow and Actions are defined in a main.workflow file. The final file for our sample application looks like this:

workflow "phpunit / phpinsights / php-cs-fixer" { on = "push" resolves = [ "phpunit", "phpinsights", "auto-commit-php-cs-fixer", ] } action "composer install" { uses = "MilesChou/composer-action@master" args = "install -q --no-ansi --no-interaction --no-scripts --no-suggest --no-progress --prefer-dist" } action "phpunit" { needs = ["composer install"] uses = "./actions/run-phpunit/" args = "tests/" } action "phpinsights" { needs = ["composer install"] uses = "stefanzweifel/laravel-phpinsights-action@v1.0.0" args = "-v --min-quality=80 --min-complexity=80 --min-architecture=80 --min-style=80" } action "php-cs-fixer" { uses = "docker://oskarstark/php-cs-fixer-ga" } action "auto-commit-php-cs-fixer" { needs = ["php-cs-fixer"] uses = "stefanzweifel/git-auto-commit-action@v1.0.0" secrets = ["GITHUB_TOKEN"] env = { COMMIT_MESSAGE = "Apply php-cs-fixer changes" COMMIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL = "jon.doe@example.com" COMMIT_AUTHOR_NAME = "Jon Doe" } }

GitHub Actions are not written in YAML or JSON, but in HSL. If you’ve worked with Terraform in the past, the syntax might look familiar to you.

I won’t go deep what each keyword in the Workflow syntax does (uses, needs, secrets, etc.). You should rather read the documentation.

The most important keywords for us right now are:

• uses: Set which Action in a Workflow should be used
• needs: Set which Action must successfully run, before this Action runs. (Similar to Dependencies)
• env: Environment variables defined in the Workflow file itself. Allows you as a Action consumer to change things within an Action
• secrets: Secret environment variables like API keys which should not be stored in the repository

Dockerfile? Oh no!

Each Action is executed in a Docker container. Therefore, each Action needs a Dockerfile. If you now think: "Oh no! I don’t know Docker!", then we have something in common. I’ve read and heard a lot about Docker over the years, but never really worked with it.

The good thing is that you don’t have to be a Docker expert to create or work with Actions. All you need to do is set a base image and then you’re good to go. The "core" Actions code can basically be written in any language.

One caveat you have to keep in mind when working with Actions, is that even though each Action is run in its own container, the underlying filesystem is shared with other Actions. Meaning: If one Action changes repository files, these changes are also available in other Actions.

So let’s get started with our first PHP Action.

Install Composer dependencies

To do anything with a Laravel project, we first have to install its dependencies with composer.

This can be accomplished by using the general composer Action developed by MilesChou.

workflow "composer install" { on = "push" resolves = [ "composer install" ] } action "composer install" { uses = "MilesChou/composer-action@master" args = "install -q --no-ansi --no-interaction --no-scripts --no-suggest --no-progress --prefer-dist" }

As all following task depend on composer dependencies, all other task should have "composer install" defined in the needs keyword. The "composer install" Action is therefore executed before all other Actions. (GitHub is clever enough though, to only run the Action once).

Action 1: Run phpunit test suite

One of the most common things to do in Continuous Integration is running your projects test suite on each code push.

As the test suite setup differs from project to project, I won’t use a publicly available Action to run phpunit. I will use an Action defined in the project itself. In the root of my project I create an actions/run-phpunit-folder and within it the following files:

Dockerfile

FROM php:7.3-cli-alpine LABEL "com.github.actions.name"="phpunit-test" LABEL "com.github.actions.description"="Run phpunit test suite" LABEL "com.github.actions.icon"="check-circle" LABEL "com.github.actions.color"="green" ADD entrypoint.sh /entrypoint.sh ENTRYPOINT ["/entrypoint.sh"]

entrypoint.sh

 set -eu cp .env.example .env php artisan key:generate vendor/bin/phpunit $*

In the Dockerfile we tell Actions that we want to use PHP 7.3 and that we want to execute the entrypoint.sh-file next.

The entrypoint.sh-file is where the logic of the Action lives. To run the test suite, we first create a copy of the example Laravel environment file and generate a fresh application key.

Next, phpunit is executed. Any provided arguments (args) are passed down and will be placed where the $* variable is.

If your project needs more PHP extensions or a MySQL database, the entrypoint.sh would be the place where you set these things up. (That’s why I didn’t use an already existing Action. The setup differs from project to project.)

In our Workflow file, we can now add the Action:

workflow "phpunit" { on = "push" resolves = [ "phpunit" ] } action "composer install" { uses = "MilesChou/composer-action@master" args = "install -q --no-ansi --no-interaction --no-scripts --no-suggest --no-progress --prefer-dist" } action "phpunit" { needs = ["composer install"] uses = "./actions/run-phpunit/" args = "tests/" }

Even though this was quite easy to set up, I personally wouldn’t use GitHub Actions to run the test suite for my bigger projects yet.

Other CI services like Travis or Circle CI are much better suited for this task. These services give you richer notifications and better performance features like parallelism and dependency caching out of the box. With GitHub Actions you would have to implement this on your own.

However, I think Actions is perfectly fine for smaller projects.

Action 2: Run php insights

Our next Action is going to run phpinsights on each push. As we don’t have to set up a database or PHP extensions to run insights we can use an existing Action. As no phpinsights Actions existed when I wrote this article, I wrote my own: phpinsights-action and laravel-phpinsights-action.

As we’re working with a Laravel app, we’re going to use the Laravel version of the Action.

workflow "phpunit / phpinsights / php-cs-fixer" { on = "push" resolves = [ "phpunit", "phpinsights" ] } action "phpinsights" { needs = ["composer install"] uses = "stefanzweifel/laravel-phpinsights-action@v1.0.0" args = "-v --min-quality=80 --min-complexity=80 --min-architecture=80 --min-style=80" }

As you can see, I’m passing the --min-xxx arguments to the Action. If the code quality of my app would drop in a future Pull Request, the Action would return a "failed" status code which in turn would mark the Pull Request as failed.

To see the reported issues of phpinsights you can open the log on github.com

Action 3: Run php-cs-fixer

Another common use case to use a CI service, is to check if your code follows the code convention and style guide you or your team has defined.

This can be accomplished by running an existing php-cs-fixer Action developed by Oskar Stark.

workflow "phpunit / phpinsights / php-cs-fixer" { on = "push" resolves = [ "phpunit", "phpinsights", "php-cs-fixer", ] } action "php-cs-fixer" { uses = "docker://oskarstark/php-cs-fixer-ga" }

Here we’ve used another way to define an Action: By using the docker:// protocol, you can directly point to an image on DockerHub.

The Action uses your existing .php_cs configuration and runs php-cs-fixer on your project. However, the Action always returns a "successful" status code. It doesn’t matter if violations happen.

But if violations would happen, php-cs-fixer automatically fixes them. So wouldn’t it be cool if the fixed files would automatically be committed and pushed back to your branch? 🤔

Action 3 Bonus: Commit fixed files

As I said in the beginning of this article, the underlying file system is shared between multiple Actions in a Workflow. So committing the fixed files is just "an Action away".

I’ve created a git-auto-commit-Action which commits all changed files and pushes the commit back to the repository.

Our updated main.workflow file now looks like this.

workflow "phpunit / phpinsights / php-cs-fixer" { on = "push" resolves = [ "phpunit", "phpinsights", "auto-commit-php-cs-fixer", ] } action "php-cs-fixer" { uses = "docker://oskarstark/php-cs-fixer-ga" } action "auto-commit-php-cs-fixer" { needs = ["php-cs-fixer"] uses = "stefanzweifel/git-auto-commit-action@v1.0.0" secrets = ["GITHUB_TOKEN"] env = { COMMIT_MESSAGE = "Apply php-cs-fixer changes" COMMIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL = "john.doe@example.com" COMMIT_AUTHOR_NAME = "John Doe" } }

Now on every push, possible style changes are automatically committed and pushed back to your repository. No need to run the command manually or for a Third-Party-service.

We now also added our first secret: GITHUB_TOKEN. This is a special secret which is available to all Actions in a repository. But it’s not enabled by default. You have to add it manually in the visual editor on github.com

As this Action uses the GITHUB_TOKEN to authenticate the git push-command, GitHub won’t trigger a second run of the Workflow. (Keep that in mind!)

Outlook

I think this covers the basics of GitHub Actions for PHP developers. I’m very excited about Actions and what the future holds. I hope the feature leaves the beta soon, so that more people can use it in their projects.

GitHub already announced support for Scheduled Workflows which opens a big realm of possibilities. (Jason Etcovitch writes here how he uses Scheduled Workflows to automatically create weekly meeting notes). Or for example, you could also build an Uptime-Monitoring Action which is triggered every few minutes and would send Slack or Email notifications.

Personally, I would like to use the Scheduling feature to fully automate Laravel Download Statistics (a side project of mine). A workflow could trigger the update of download numbers, create a new HTML export and push everything to Netlify.
No need for humans any more 🤖🤯.

Start developing your own Actions

If I could excite you about Actions and you want to start developing your own Actions, here are a few resources I’ve found while working on this article:

And here’s a list of Actions I found, which I actually would like to implement in my projects.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Peter Brinck, Célien Boillat and Max Almonte for proof reading this article and giving feedback.

The day my boyfriend put giardiniera on a pizza changed my life forever. That boyfriend, now my husband, is a third-generation pizza maker, and his suburban Chicago family pizzeria has served tavern-style pies and other Chicago-style Italian fare since the 1950s. As much as I’d love to shout out the pizzeria’s name, you’ll soon see why I’m going to keep that detail to myself.

Being married to pizza has many perks, undeniably. But as a pizza aficionado since I could eat solid food, it’s eye-opening to experience owning a pizza restaurant. I’m now immersed in the world of independent restaurants, for all its joys and heartaches. My husband grew up in an entire family that ran pizzerias, so treating a Tuesday afternoon (the slowest business day of the week) like most people’s Saturday is his norm. But for me, the responsibilities of owning a small business have been a huge adjustment.

There are certainly bright sides to owning a pizzeria—yes, I mean free pizza. But, there are downsides, too. Many. My family doesn’t get many holidays; we work Christmas Eve, Mother’s Day, New Year’s Eve and/or Day, Valentine’s Day. Those are big business occasions for the catering side of our mom-and-pop, and those are the days that the regular, already intense hustle goes into overdrive.

Restaurant owners like my husband are always working. Even if he has a day or evening off, something can come up—an employee not showing up to work or the pizza oven breaking in the middle of the Saturday-night rush. It’s a life of early mornings and late nights, whether to meet a contractor to repair an appliance or to organize and deep clean the restaurant.

But one of the more frustrating economic aspects of owning a pizzeria is competing with fast-food pizza chains. Fast-food pizza franchises have Super Bowl-sized advertising budgets, the support of a corporate force behind them, and national name recognition. When their pizza ovens break, there’s protocol. They also notoriously sell cheap pies made with mass-produced ingredients, whereas independent pizzerias like ours stake our reputations on high-quality, homemade pies at higher—but fair—prices.

So why do our pies cost more? What are you buying when you order pizza from us? Let’s break down the costs that go into our pizzeria’s 15-inch cheese pizza (large), which we sell for $16.50.

Ingredients and materials: $3.91

A simple cheese pizza in an independent pizzeria can be anything but simple to make—especially when you’re making the dough and sauce from scratch, and using high-quality, gooey cheese. According to Pizza Today, cheese prices are set by the “open outcry spot market” in a 10-minute daily trading session at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. As I write this, the price for whole milk mozzarella is $2.08 per pound (we figure half a pound of cheese for each large pizza—$1.04). Wholesale supplies are cost-saving, especially when you’re ordering tomato paste and puree by the case, but together, all the ingredients that go into homemade pizza sauce can cost $1.99 per pizza. Throw in the flour and other ingredients used in the homemade dough, which amount to 45 cents, as well as 30 cents for a pizza box and 13 cents for a pizza circle.

Labor: $1.60

Minimum wage is a hot topic these days, and varies based on geography. At our pizzeria, the average hourly rate for employees is about $12 an hour. If you calculate the time it takes for one phone operator/cashier to take your order, one cook to make the pizza (roll the dough, add the sauce and cheese, slide it into the oven), cut it, box it and set aside for pickup or delivery, it is roughly 8-10 minutes in total—excluding cooking time.

Rent, Utilities, Odds/Ends: $5.65

Our suburban space is leased, so while the rent is a significant chunk of money per month, it is most likely lower than, say, a pizzeria in downtown Chicago. But adding up the cost for rent, heat, electricity, water, phone and internet services, the point-of-sale system and the loan repayment (which secured items like the pizza oven, dough mixer, prep tables, refrigerators, pizza rollers and other tools), plus periodic orders and maintenance of odds and ends like kitchen mats, menus, towels and aprons and cleaning supplies, it’s not insignificant.

---

The overhead cost for one large cheese pizza at our independent pizzeria is $11.16, which leaves a $5.34 profit. Keep in mind, though, the one variable a restaurant owner can’t control is how many orders they will get in a given day. It’s the make-or-break factor for any independent restaurant. Regardless of the foot traffic, online orders or calls, owners are still paying hourly wages, utilities and rent for the minutes that tick by without orders ringing in.

Growing up, I would visit family-owned restaurants across Chicago and dream of how cool it would be to own a restaurant and have complete creative control, feeding happy people, and hanging out at a place with unlimited soda.

From working nights, weekends and holidays to finding good help to customer complaints, the business can be a lot less glamorous than most people realize. Sure, the unlimited soda helps, but the job is not clock-in, clock-out. The first few years are a complete struggle, and we often refer to the pizzeria as a baby, because it always comes first. It requires a lot of care and attention, it teaches you a lot and can tear you down before bringing you back up. I don’t expect you to think about all that struggle—or math—while you’re eating our pizza, though. I just hope you think it’s the best pizza you’ve ever tasted, and well worth the money.