Auditable Transition

Another feature introduced in version 5.0.0 is the ability use an Audit record to transition between states of an Auditable model.

Transition Rules

An Auditable model can only transition through an Audit with the same auditable_id and auditable_type, otherwise, an AuditableTransitionException will be thrown.

Besides a matching auditable_id and auditable_type, attribute compatibility must be met between the Audit's old_values / new_values and the Auditable class.

An AuditableTransitionException will be thrown if an attribute incompatibility is detected.

Incompatible property names can be retrieved using the getIncompatibilities() method.

Using a Article model example, here's how it works:

<?php

// ...

try {
    $article = Article::find(123);

    // An old Audit from when the Article
    // model had different property names
    $audit = $article->audits()->first();

    $article->transitionTo($audit);

} catch (AuditableTransitionException $e) {
    echo sprintf('Incompatible attributes: %s', implode(', ', $e->getIncompatibilities()));
}

// ...

Transitioning

The Auditable interface defines a transitionTo() method, which is in charge of validating and transitioning the model state.

The method takes two arguments, an Audit which will be used as the history to go back to, and a bool (optional), which will define if the old or the new data from the Audit should be used.

{tip} By default, the new data will be used.

Still using the same Article model, here's how it works:

<?php

// ...

// Get the latest Article
$latestArticle = Article::orderBy('created_at', 'desc')->first();

// Get the first Audit from the latest Article
$firstAudit = $latestArticle->audits()->first();

// Update the Article properties with the corresponding ones in the new_values Audit attribute
$dirtyLatestArticleFromNew = $latestArticle->transitionTo($firstAudit);

// Update the Article properties with the corresponding ones in the old_values Audit attribute
$dirtyLatestArticleFromOld = $latestArticle->transitionTo($firstAudit, true);

// See the updated attributes during the state transition using the new values
dump($dirtyLatestArticleFromNew->getDirty());

// See the updated attributes during the state transition using the old values
dump($dirtyLatestArticleFromOld->getDirty());

// ...

{note} The transitionTo() method updates model attributes without persisting to the database. It's the developer's responsibility to check that the new state is correct and calling save() on the model.