v2.0 - fromRequest not working as intended (?)

[coreation]

First off, absolutely love the package, as someone who builds data intensive web application, I was really wondering how other people got through their array/object mess if there's a ton of data objects floating around.

DTOs solve that, and this is a very big step up for anyone working with them, so many thanks!

Second, I couldn't wrap my head around the magical conversion of injecting a DTO class into a controller method. According to the documentation, the creation of the DTO should be made based on the properties in the request, or, if defined, based on the fromRequest method of the DTO.

What I experience, even with the "song title" example , is that the fromRequest is called, but the code first tries to populate it via request properties anyway.

This leads to the fromRequest missing its goal (is it a bug or is this intentional?) because any additional properties you want to put into the constructor of your DTO via the fromRequest will need be defined as nullable in the constructor, since it first tries to make the DTO based on the request properties.

So my question is, is this intended behaviour or is this a bug? If the latter, happy to help out!

[jskorlol]

I think I need this feature.

[devenjahnke]

I'm experiencing the same issue. I cannot get the fromRequest method to trigger when creating a DTO via injection into the controller.

[coreation]

That's odd, that's not what I experience. The fromRequest is triggered, but it tries to make the DTO object first anyway, based on the request properties and the properties defined in the constructor. Once that is done, it then tries to build one using the fromRequest method. That's the behaviour that I believe is not intended as you want to override that default behaviour.

[rubenvanassche]

Seems indeed like a bug but cannot replicate it. We have a test which tests this feature (

laravel-data/tests/RequestDataTest.php

Lines 246 to 272 in 8a6a8af

	/** @test */
	public function it_can_manually_override_how_the_data_object_will_be_constructed()
	{
	DataBlueprintFactory::new('OverrideableDataFromRequest')
	->withProperty(
	DataPropertyBlueprintFactory::new('name')
	->withAttribute(WithoutValidation::class)
	->withType('string')
	)
	->withMethod(
	DataMagicMethodFactory::new('fromRequest')
	->withInputType(Request::class, 'request')
	->withBody('return new self("{$request->input(\'first_name\')} {$request->input(\'last_name\')}");')
	)
	->create();
	Route::post('/other-route', function (\OverrideableDataFromRequest $data) {
	return ['name' => $data->name];
	});
	$this->postJson('/other-route', [
	'first_name' => 'Rick',
	'last_name' => 'Astley',
	])
	->assertOk()
	->assertJson(['name' => 'Rick Astley']);
	}

) and this works like expected:

• We provide properties through request
• a fromRequest method will map these properties and create the data object correctly

Could you provide me a test where this feature isn't working? Then we can figure out what's going wrong.

[rubenvanassche]

That's completely correct!

[coreation]

Perfect, thanks so much for taking the time to reply and maintaining this package, it really packs a lot of value.

[coreation]

This answers my question @rubenvanassche , looking back at this though, doesn't it make sense to change this behaviour? I'd expect that if I make a DTO where I add my required properties in my constructor and overwrite the behaviour when it's being made in a request, that if I add inject it into a Controller, where "Request" is often injected, it uses the fromRequest method and skipping some validations on its own? Not putting work into your hands, I might want to pick this up as well, as I think that'd be more the behaviour someone would expect?

[rubenvanassche]

Hmm I don't think the fromRequest method should validate stuff that's something the package should do. As soon data enters the fromRequest method the only thing you probably should do is correctly map data. I'm not sure this is a change we want't to make. But maybe you can convince me with a good example 😄

[coreation]

Hi @rubenvanassche , sorry to get back at this so late. The main reason for this is that I added a "WithoutValidation" attribute to properties that needed mapping and that sort of solved my issue.

My proposal was not to add validation to the fromRequest method, but rather point out that when a request is coming in, and you use the DTO as a typehint in a controller function, then you have to add a lot of "WithoutValidation" annotations if that requests doesn't follow the same naming strategy as your DTO properties.

I was coming up with some proposals, but none of them really solve the issue in an eloquent way, so I think I'll leave it at that and go with the "WithoutValidation" solution ;) Just a few pointers!

"As soon data enters the fromRequest method the only thing you probably should do is correctly map data."
That's correct! And that's what I do, the issue is that if you don't use WithoutValidation annotations on the properties that are mapped in the fromRequest function, then exceptions are thrown because it tries to build the DTO, but cannot find the properties in the request. And that's what I find odd, because I assumed it would know "I'm being constructed in a controller method, so let's use the fromRequest method" but that's not the case.

Anyhow, thanks for the elaborate rundown of things, glad I got to get some insights under the hood ;)