[5.3] Allow key arguments to model getAttributes

[ntzm]

No description provided.

[tabennett]

FYI, this breaks backwards compatibility with any existing 5.3 app that's overriding the getAttributes() method or using a package that does. I ran composer update and now having production sites (that were already upgraded to 5.3) breaking now.

[CristianLlanos]

Using getAttribute within this method might cause some incompatibilites. When you ask all attributes, Eloquent won't cast nor use mutators in any of them; but when you specify some keys you will get them casted or mutated (if there is something to mutate). In my view, this method may cause confusion since it works one way with parameters and in a different way without parameters.

For example, let's say we have this Model:

User extends Eloquent
{
    protected $casts = [
        'active' => 'boolean'
    ];

   public function getFullNameAttribute()
   {
        return $this->first_name . ' ' . $this->last_name;
   }
}

$attributes = $model->getAttributes();

// You'll get the following without "full_name" attribute
$attributes = [
    // ...
    'active' => 1,
    'created_at' => '2016-10-07 14:47:25',
    // ...
];

This is how it comes from the database. If you use $model->getAttributes() that's what you'll get, but if you just ask for those attributes as you propose this is what you'll get:

$attributes = $model->getAttributes(['active', 'created_at', 'full_name']);

$attributes = [
    // ...
    'active' => true,
    'created_at' => new Carbon('2016-10-07 14:47:25'),
    'full_name' => 'Cristian Llanos',
    // ...
]

In this case you'll get active as a boolean, not a number and created_at as a Carbon instance since its a timestamp and Eloquent does that when you call getAttribute.

Newcomers or someone who doesn't know about this behaviour might have a hard time figuring out why this method provides different results in certain occasions.

I'm not very confident about this, but I suppose getAttributes should return us all attributes already casted or mutated as needed. However, this is not the case nowadays and for that purpose we can use $model->toArray() (which will give us all attributes casted or mutated).

[lucasmichot]

@ntzm - my app is now broken...

[taylorotwell]

I'll revert it.

[ntzm]

Oops! Sorry guys