Store additional contextual data on Laravel Request objects

This package makes managing contextual data about a request a breeze. It might be helpful to think of Request Contexts as an alternative to session data, the difference being Request Contexts only persist for the lifespan of the request.

For example, you can retrieve the authenticated User's active Team like so:

$currentTeam = Request::context()->get('currentTeam');

Installation

You can install the package via composer:

composer require scuttlebyte/laravel-request-context

Note: Laravel 5.4+ is required.

Usage

Register context for later use in the request

Request::context()->put('currentTeam', Request::user()->teams->first());

Access Request Context by key

$currentTeam = Request::context()->get('currentTeam');

Request Contexts don't have to be Eloquent models:

<?php
Request::context()->put('currentTeamTaskCount', Request::user()->teams->first()->tasks->count());

$count = Request::context()->get('currentTeamTaskCount');
// int(10)

<?php
Request::context()->put('teamOwner', Request::user()->teams->first()->owner->name);

$owner = Request::context()->get('teamOwner');
// string(14) "Martha Stewart"

<?php
Request::context()->put('teamProperties', Request::user()->teams->first()->properties);

$properties = Request::context()->get('teamProperties');
// array(1) {
//   'foo' =>
//   string(3) "bar"
// }

The sky is pretty much the limit. You can even pass an array of contexts in:

<?php
Request::context()->put([
    'currentTeamTaskCount' => Request::user()->teams->first()->tasks->count(),
    'teamOwner' => Request::user()->teams->first()->owner->name
]);

$count = Request::context()->get('currentTeamTaskCount');
// int(10)

$owner = Request::context()->get('teamOwner');
// string(14) "Martha Stewart"

Facade & helper

Go ahead, there's no judgement here.

Facade Context:

// store it
Context::put('currentTeam', Request::user()->teams->first());

// get it
$currentTeam = Context::get('currentTeam');

Helper method context():

// store it
context('currentTeam', request()->user()->teams->first());

// get it
$currentTeam = context('currentTeam');

Where to bind Contexts?

A Middleware is the perfect candidate:

<?php

namespace App\Http\Middleware;

use Closure;

class StoreTeamRequestContext
{
    public function handle($request, Closure $next)
    {
        $request->context()->put('currentTeam', $request->user()->teams()->first());
        return $next($request);
    }
}

But why?

Accessing contextual data through chained Eloquent relationships and helpers leaks implementation details throughout your application, and often leads to a lot of similar and repeated lines of code.

This package does its best to aid you in the following ways:

• Explicitly binds contextual data in a single location
• Makes refactoring contextual relationships much easier and less risky
• Context values are easily retrieved anywhere you have access to a Request object without memorizing chained eloquent relationships

Testing

composer test

Changelog

Please see CHANGELOG for more information on what has changed recently.

Contributing

Please see CONTRIBUTING for details.

Security

If you discover any security related issues, please email jake@scuttlebyte.com instead of using the issue tracker.

Credits

Spatie for their commitment to open source and the Laravel community (and for the skeleton used to create this package!)

License

The MIT License (MIT). Please see License File for more information.