Defining Entities

To get started with CycleORM entities in Laravel, you typically place your entity classes in the app/Entities directory. This is a departure from the conventional app/Models directory used by Eloquent.

Here's a basic example of a Post entity in CycleORM:

app/Entities/Post.php

<?php
 
declare(strict_types=1);
 
namespace App\Entities;
 
use Cycle\Annotated\Annotation\Column;
use Cycle\Annotated\Annotation\Entity;
use Cycle\ORM\Entity\Behavior\Uuid\Uuid7;
use Ramsey\Uuid\UuidInterface;
 
#[Entity]
#[Uuid7(field: 'id')]
class Post
{
    #[Column(type: 'uuid', primary: true)]
    public UuidInterface $id;
 
    #[Column(type: "string")]
    private string $title;
 
    #[Column(type: "text")]
    private string $content;
 
    public function __construct(string $title, string $content)
    {
        $this->title = $title;
        $this->content = $content;
    }
 
    public function id(): UuidInterface
    {
        return $this->id;
    }
 
    public function title(): string
    {
        return $this->title;
    }
 
    public function content(): string
    {
        return $this->content;
    }
}

By default, the laravel-cycle-orm-adapter is configured to scan the app/Entities directory for entities. However, you can customize this behavior by modifying the tokenizer section in the config/cycle.php configuration file. Here's how you can adjust it:

config/cycle.php

return [
    'tokenizer' => [
        'directories' => [
            app_path('Entities'), // Directs CycleORM to scan this directory for entities
        ],
        // Additional configuration...
    ],
];

For projects adopting Domain-Driven Design (DDD) principles, it's common to place entities within a domain-specific layer, such as Domain/Post, rather than a single directory. This approach not only organizes your codebase around your business domain but also enhances the scalability and maintainability of your application.

Adjusting the config/cycle.php for a DDD structure might look like this:

config/cycle.php

return [
    'tokenizer' => [
        'directories' => [
            __DIR__ . '/../src/Domain', // Load entities from all Domains
            __DIR__ . '/../vendor/wayofdev/laravel-webhook-client/src/Entities', // Load entities from vendor directory
        ],
        // Additional configuration...
    ],
];

This setup ensures that your Laravel application benefits from the clear separation of concerns provided by the Data Mapper pattern, with CycleORM efficiently managing the persistence of your domain entities.

💡

Read full documentation about Entities in CycleORM.

Working with Entities Working with Relationships