Magic from() methods are called only after validation when validateAndCreate() is invoked. So it's always marked as invalid.

[raveren]

<?php

namespace Tests\Unit;

use Spatie\LaravelData\Data;
use Tests\TestCase;

class Example3Test extends TestCase
{
    public function test_magic_from(): void
    {
        $songName = '[[ SONG NAME ]]';
        $song     = Song::from(['title' => $songName]);

        // Test begins here
        dump('first');
        $t = HitSong::from($song); // magic method `fromS` invoked as evident in output below
        dump($t->title_of_hit_song);
        self::assertEquals($songName, $t->title_of_hit_song);

        dump('second');
        $t = HitSong::validateAndCreate($song); // magic method not invoked, the title_of_hit_song is null
        dump($t->title_of_hit_song);
        self::assertEquals($songName, $t->title_of_hit_song);
    }
}

class Song extends Data
{
    public string $title;
}

class HitSong extends Data
{
    public string $title_of_hit_song;

    public static function fromS(Song $s): self
    {
        dump('custom method called');
        $o                    = new self();
        $o->title_of_hit_song = $s->title;

        return $o;
    }
}

output:

"first" // tests/Feature/asterisk/AsteriskTest.php:74
"custom method called" // tests/Feature/asterisk/AsteriskTest.php:97
"[[ SONG NAME ]]" // tests/Feature/asterisk/AsteriskTest.php:76
"second" // tests/Feature/asterisk/AsteriskTest.php:79

Illuminate\Validation\ValidationException : title of hit song is required
 /var/www/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Support/helpers.php:327
 /var/www/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Validation/Validator.php:495
 /var/www/vendor/spatie/laravel-data/src/Concerns/ValidateableData.php:30
 /var/www/vendor/spatie/laravel-data/src/Concerns/ValidateableData.php:52

So the only difference from issue #394 code is: public string $title_of_hit_song; - it's no longer optional.

It has to be present, and the custom from method sets it properly. However, because the validation is launched first, it never comes to that, effectively NEVER calling the magic method and ALWAYS throwing validation exception, making it IMPOSSIBLE for the magic from method to be invoked via validateAndCreate if any validation rules are present.

[rubenvanassche]

I don't see this as an issue, the method is called validateAndCreate so yeah first it validates and then it creates an object.

Though indeed you could first create an object with a magic method and then validate it. This might not be true for all cases, since we actually see magic methods as a last resort. If everything goes well laravel-data doesn't need them.

First creating an object and then validating it is extremely dangerous because PHP could start throwing exceptions with wrong property types.

I think you could add a createAndValidate method in this case, since you're able to get the validation rules after the object is created and you could manually validate the object. But I don't think this method needs to be in the package since validation is now already such complicated topic. Adding a whole new way to do it makes it even more complicated.

[raveren]

Hello, I hope you had a long, relaxing weekend!

I am sorry, but you are viewing this matter from a maintainers perspective, and I am creating a user issue.

The objective fact here is the library does not work as expected.

It is not my opinion, not even a matter of opinion.

You might not have the motivation or resources to fix it now, it's understandable, but if you expect to run with the library in the current state, it WILL be a huge issue once more people start to use it.

Talking purely from a user-of-your-functionality point of view, It's surprising (and undocumented) that:

1. First of all, from() does not perform validation. It does all casts and name resolutions, but inexplicably not validation.
2. The ONLY way to validate passed data is supposed to be createAndValidate, and it is utterly broken! It doesn't actually validate because it does not call the appropriate from() method, so e.g. if you're converting an object to dto there is actually NO way to run validation.
3. The third surprising thing is that Spatie, an organization with such great reputation in the open source community is suddenly not acknowledging a major, fundamental issue with their project which has a stable version, closing reported issues left and right!

[raveren]

I am sorry that you read negative, non-technical comment from what I wrote, I am sincerely trying to be as positive and optimistic as I can.

However, unless you're referring to the part which begins with "personally", and was ommitted as a side note to give you my background, I believe everything else is very technical!

[raveren]

I can work around from() not validating, even if it's surprising and you had people besides me be confused and write you about it (should I look it up?), but not having ANY way to validate a passed object is a blocker, guys, I am not negative, it just ain't possible!

[raveren]

I am really sorry that I seem offensive, I love and admire what you guys are doing!

[raveren]

Further to describe the situation from my side, how I stumbled upon the issue.

My team wrote a huge DtoMapper functionality which is now used to convert objects to spatie dtos. One is supposed to create class MyDtoToYourDtoMapper extends DtoMapper and define how one object is converted into a destination DTO. There's a number of issues with it:

1. it has deep trouble when validating and name mapping are both present in destination DTO - maybe the approach (convert to array then pass to destination from()) was not best, but I think this part didn't work out at all and the colleague had his contract end at this time :(
2. it is reproducing a LOT of what spatie/data already does - using reflection for public properties etc
3. mapper classes are difficult to discover/maintain and have no autocomplete of the destination columns
4. YOU GUYS HAVE A PERFECT SOLUTION ALREADY - the magic from() methods!

And the rest you know - turns out the magic from() methods are either not called or not validated :(

[raveren]

And again, final time, I promise, I really really struggle to find what it is that looks insulting (or condescending maybe??) in my tone :( I'm really sorry, I'm doing my best to just report the issue and all relevant aspects about it!

[adam-code-labx]

I came across a similar issue this afternoon using the from magic method.
return DefaultResponse::from($this->model)->toArray();

ErrorException: Trying to access array offset on value of type null at vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Foundation/Bootstrap/HandleExceptions.php:256 at vendor/spatie/laravel-data/src/Support/Creation/CreationContextFactory.php:47 at vendor/spatie/laravel-data/src/Concerns/BaseData.php:60 at vendor/spatie/laravel-data/src/Concerns/BaseData.php:46

After a quick deep dive I could see the magic from method uses CreationContextFactory::createFromConfig which relies on the config. Now within a laravel application structure the config is resolved and there is no ErrorException.

However when using Laravel Data for packages you will need to include the LaravelDataServiceProvider which then resolves the data config.

class TestCase extends Orchestra
{
    protected function setUp(): void
    {
        parent::setUp();

        $this->loadLaravelMigrations(['--database' => 'testbench']);
    }

    protected function getEnvironmentSetUp($app)
    {
        $app['config']->set('database.default', 'testbench');
        $app['config']->set('database.connections.testbench', [
            'driver' => 'sqlite',
            'database' => ':memory:',
            'prefix' => '',
        ]);
    }

    protected function getPackageProviders($app)
    {
        return [
            LaravelDataServiceProvider::class,
        ];
    }
}

@freekmurze Perhaps I should submit a PR for docs package testing here or perhaps a new Testing section under ADVANCED USAGE?
https://spatie.be/docs/laravel-data/v4/advanced-usage/performance#content-testing

[rubenvanassche]

If you want, you can add a new section to the advanced usage docs called "In Packages" and add a section about testing 👍

[adam-code-labx]

Thanks I will submit a PR this afternoon.

2nd step considering creating a PEST plugin as I am using data objects throughout my test suite and would love to make this more of a fluent API to streamline Data object testing for everyone 😜

[rubenvanassche]

Cool idea!