README-Ardent.md

Eloquent-Sluggable Integration with Ardent

Ardent is a package that "provides self-validating smart models for Laravel Framework 4's Eloquent ORM". You can configure your Ardent models to include built-in validator rules, and Ardent will handle all the hard work for you.

Unfortunately, the eloquent.saving hook that Sluggable relies on to generate slugs doesn't get fired before Ardent does it's validation. So, imagine your Ardent model looks like this:

class Post extends Ardent {

	/**
	 * Ardent rules
	 */
	public static $rules = array(
		'title' => 'required',
		'slug'  => 'required|unique'
	);

	/**
	 * Sluggable config
	 */
	protected $sluggable = array(
		'build_from' => 'title',
		'save_to'    => 'slug',
	);

}

When you go to save the model, you'll get a validation error:

Slug field required

There are three ways around this:

1. Don't specify rules for your slug attribute with Ardent. Sluggable will handle the generation and unique checks for you.

2. Create a beforeValidate method in your model that generates the slug first:

public function beforeValidate()
{
	$this->sluggify();
}

3. Manually generate the slug before saving:

$post = new Post(...);

$post->sluggify();
$post->save();

The second option above is likely the most elegant. If you have your own BaseModel class that extends Ardent, then just put the beforeValidate() method in there and you should be good to go!