[Feature Request]: Autocomplete custom cast of collection of objects

[dsazup]

Feature Description

This feature request is made of two parts. The first part might actually be a bug.

When we use a cast in the model like so:

class Person extends Model
{
   protected function casts(): array
    {
        return [
            'emails' => AsCollection::of(ContactEmail::class),
        ];
    }
}

The genereated helper code is:

  /**
     * @property ContactEmail[]|Collection<array-key, App\Values\ContactEmail>|null $emails

Notice that the namespace for App\Values\ContactEmail is missing a prefix slash. So if I do:

$person->emails

I get this autocomplete:

but if I do $emails = $person->emails()->first->
I get no autocomplete. If I manually change generated helper code and add a prefix \ it works

Would it be possible to fix this? Also if I do emails' => AsCollection::of('\App\Values\ContactEmail'), (a class name as a string) it works correctly.

---

Additionally, if we use any other custom cast besides laravel's AsCollection or spatie's equivalent, there's no autocomplete whatsover. For example using this package

https://bagvalueobjects.com/laravel-eloquent-casting.html#casting-collections

if I have

class Person extends Model
{
   protected function casts(): array
    {
        return [
            'emails' => AsCollection::of(ContactEmail::class),
        ];
    }
}

I get no autocomplete and generated helper code is just

* @property array|null $emails

Is there any way to make this autocomplete work?

[gorbunov]

Additionally, if we use any other custom cast besides laravel's AsCollection or spatie's equivalent, there's no autocomplete whatsover. For example using this package

https://bagvalueobjects.com/laravel-eloquent-casting.html#casting-collections

Thank you for taking the time to write this request!

Main problem is that plugin itself is static analysis tool, it doesn't run PHP, so there is no way to do conditional runtime logic in the users code.
Basically, support for each cast is manually implemented in plugin, and since php as a language doesn't have anything like generics, there is no good way to typehint anything without exact types.

but if I do $emails = $person->emails()->first->
I get no autocomplete. If I manually change generated helper code and add a prefix \ it works

I'm not sure, but I think ->emails() won't work in laravel itself? Casts are added as properties to model instance, method exists for relations (and return relation object)?

[adelf]

The first problem with Collection<array-key, App\Values\ContactEmail> is fixed. Will be available in the next update.

The next one is more complicated. We will try to add something to ide.json to cover it.

[dsazup]

Thank you both for the replies and fixing the issue so quickly! 👍

I'm not sure, but I think ->emails() won't work in laravel itself? Casts are added as properties to model instance, method exists for relations (and return relation object)?

You're right, I did mean $obj->emails->first() instead of $obj->emails(). My bad here.

For the second part I am currently working around this by adding

@property \Illuminate\Support\Collection<int, \App\Values\ContactEmail>|null $emails

to a dockblock in my model file and this works, just a bit awkward to have some of these added in the model while other things are defined in the helper file. If there was a way to define something like this in the ide.json that would be awesome 👍