Sushi 🍣

Eloquent's missing "array" driver.

Sometimes you want to use Eloquent, but without dealing with a database.

This Package Is Sponsorware 💰💰💰

Originally, this package was only available to my sponsors on GitHub Sponsors until I reached 75 sponsors.

Now that we've reached the goal, the package is fully open source.

Enjoy, and thanks for the support! ❤️

Learn more about Sponsorware at github.com/sponsorware/docs 💰.

Install

composer require calebporzio/sushi

Use

Using this package consists of two steps:

1. Add the Sushi trait to a model.
2. Add a $rows property to the model.

That's it.

class State extends Model
{
    use \Sushi\Sushi;

    protected $rows = [
        [
            'abbr' => 'NY',
            'name' => 'New York',
        ],
        [
            'abbr' => 'CA',
            'name' => 'California',
        ],
    ];
}

Now, you can use this model anywhere you like, and it will behave as if you created a table with the rows you provided.

$stateName = State::whereAbbr('NY')->first()->name;

This is really useful for "Fixture" data, like states, countries, zip codes, user_roles, sites_settings, etc...

Relationships

Let's say you created a Role model, based on an array using Sushi, that looked like this:

class Role extends Model
{
    use \Sushi\Sushi;

    protected $rows = [
        ['id' => 1, 'label' => 'admin'],
        ['id' => 2, 'label' => 'manager'],
        ['id' => 3, 'label' => 'user'],
    ];
}

You can add a relationship to another standard model, just like you normally would:

class User extends Model
{
    ...

    public function role()
    {
        return $this->belongsTo(Role::class);
    }
}

Assuming the users table has a role_id column, you can do things like this:

// Grab a User.
$user = User::first();
// Grab a Role.
$role = Role::whereLabel('admin')->first();

// Associate them.
$user->role()->associate($role);

// Access like normal.
$user->role;

// Eager load.
$user->load('role');
User::with('role')->first();

Note: There is one caveat when dealing with Sushi model relationships. The whereHas method will NOT work. This is because the two models are spread across two separate databases.

Using database-checking validation rules

You can even use Laravel's exists:table,column database checking request validation rule.

$data = request()->validate([
    'state' => ['required', 'exists:App\Model\State,abbr'],
]);

Note: Be aware that you must use the fully-qualified namespace of the model instead of a table name. This ensures that Laravel will correctly resolve the model's connection.

Custom Schema

If Sushi's schema auto-detection system doesn't meet your specific requirements for the supplied row data, you can customize them with the $schema property or the getSchema() method.

class Products extends Model
{
    use \Sushi\Sushi;

    protected $rows = [
        ['name' => 'Lawn Mower', 'price' => '226.99'],
        ['name' => 'Leaf Blower', 'price' => '134.99'],
        ['name' => 'Rake', 'price' => '9.99'],
    ];

    protected $schema = [
        'price' => 'float',
    ];
}

How It Works

Under the hood, this package creates and caches a SQLite database JUST for this model. It creates a table and populates the rows. If, for whatever reason, it can't cache a .sqlite file, it will default to using an in-memory sqlite database.

Using ->getRows()

You can optionally opt out of using the protected $rows property, and directly implement your own getRows() method.

This will allow you to determine the rows for the model at runtime. You can even generate the model's rows from an external source like a third-party API.

class Role extends Model
{
    use \Sushi\Sushi;

    public function getRows()
    {
        return [
            ['id' => 1, 'label' => 'admin'],
            ['id' => 2, 'label' => 'manager'],
            ['id' => 3, 'label' => 'user'],
        ];
    }
}

Caching ->getRows()

If you choose to use your own ->getRows() method, the rows will NOT be cached between requests by default.

You can force Sushi to cache your dataset with the following method: sushiShouldCache().

Let's look at a configuration where ->getRows() datasets would be cached as an example:

class Role extends Model
{
    use \Sushi\Sushi;

    public function getRows()
    {
        return [
            ['id' => 1, 'label' => 'admin'],
            ['id' => 2, 'label' => 'manager'],
            ['id' => 3, 'label' => 'user'],
        ];
    }

    protected function sushiShouldCache()
    {
        return true;
    }
}

By default, Sushi looks at the "last modified" timestamp of your model PHP file and compares it with its internal .sqlite cache file. If the model file has been changed more recently than the .sqlite cache file, then Sushi will destroy and rebuild the .sqlite cache.
Additionally, you can configure an external file for Sushi to reference when determining if the cache is up to date or needs to be refreshed.

If, for example, you are using Sushi to provide an Eloquent model for an external data source file like an .csv file, you can use sushiCacheReferencePath to force Sushi to reference the .csv file when determining if the cache is stale.

For example:

class Role extends Model
{
    use \Sushi\Sushi;

    public function getRows()
    {
        return CSV::fromFile(__DIR__.'/roles.csv')->toArray();
    }

    protected function sushiShouldCache()
    {
        return true;
    }

    protected function sushiCacheReferencePath()
    {
        return __DIR__.'/roles.csv';
    }
}

Now, Sushi will only "bust" its internal cache if roles.csv changes, rather than looking at the Role.php model.

Handling Empty Datasets

Sushi reads the first row in your dataset to work out the scheme of the SQLite table. If you are using getRows() and this returns an empty array (e.g an API returns nothing back) then Sushi would throw an error.

If you would like Sushi to work even if the dataset is empty, you can define your schema in the optional protected $schema array.

Note: If you choose to use your own ->getRows() method, the rows will NOT be cached between requests.

class Currency extends Model
{
    use \Sushi\Sushi;

    protected $schema = [
        'id' => 'integer',
        'name' => 'string',
        'symbol' => 'string',
        'precision' => 'float'
    ];

    public function getRows()
    {
        return [];
    }
}

Handling String-based Primary Keys

Sushi requires you to add two properties to your model, if it uses a string-based primary key - $incrementing and $keyType:

class Role extends Model
{
    use \Sushi\Sushi;
    
    public $incrementing = false;

    protected $keyType = 'string';

    protected $rows = [
        ['id' => 'admin', 'label' => 'Admin'],
        ['id' => 'manager', 'label' => 'Manager'],
        ['id' => 'user', 'label' => 'User'],
    ];
}

Troubleshoot

ERROR: SQLSTATE[HY000]: General error: 1 too many SQL variables

By default Sushi uses chunks of 100 to insert your data in the SQLite database. In some scenarios this might hit some SQLite limits.
You can configure the chunk size in the model: public $sushiInsertChunkSize = 50;