Laravel timestamps keep track of who has done certain action (like created_at & created_by, updated_at & updated_by)

Question

In my application I want to keep track of who has performed certain operations on different models in my application.

Default Laravel model with timestamps automatically updates fields like created_at and updated_at. I can modify this behavior to set the created_by field automatically by calling the static::updating() function as mentioned in this answer: https://stackoverflow.com/a/64241347/4112883 . This works very well. Additionally, I came across this package (https://github.com/WildsideUK/Laravel-Userstamps), but that is limited to only created, updated, and deleted.

For my Post model, I have more timestamps: created_at, updated_at, completed_at, checked_at, and published_at. When a user ends the post, it must be verified by that user's manager. If all is well, some logic will publish the message, but if not, the manager can create one or more actions for the user to complete the message, which will undo the finishing attributes. An action is created with the following timestamps: created, updated, and completed (null). When the user completes an action, the actions.finished_at and actions.finished_by fields are set.

Now comes the challenge. For each custom timestamp, I want to set the relationship and three functions to handle certain states of the timestamp: set, undo and check for isset:

class Post extends Model
{

  //…

  public function finishedBy() //relationship belongsTo User::class
  {
    return $this->belongsTo(User::class, 'finished_by');
  }


  public function finish() { //function to finish post (SET)
    $this->update([
            'finished_by' => auth()->id(),
            'finished_at' => now(),
        ]);

  }

  public function undoFinish() { //function to undo finishing (UNSET)
    $this->update([
            'finished_at' => null,
            'finished_by' => null,
        ]);
  }

  public function isFinished() { //function to check if is finished (ISSET)
    return !empty($this->finished_by) && !empty($this->finished_at);
  }

  //…

All four functions must be repeated for ‘checked’ and ‘published’ in the Post model, and for the ‘finished’ attribute in Action model, leading to a lot of almost-duplicate code. (Maybe in the future I want to repeat this logic in other models.)

Is there a possibility to make this more elegant with a Trait or something?

E.g. create something like an protected array $timestamps_with_user by which the application automatically adds the relationship and the three functions?

  protected $timestamps_with_users = [
    'finish', 'check', 'publish'
  ];

  // foreach in a trait?? Need your help here :D
  foreach($timestamps_with_users as $perform) {

    public function $perform() { … } //$post->finish()
    public function $perform.edBy() :User { … } //$post->finishedBy() 
    public function undo.$perform() { … } //$post->undoFinish()
    public function is.$perform.ed() { … } //$post->isFinished()

  }

Thanks in advance and looking forward to your answers.

Answer 1

Just create a new trait and create functions that works with any timestamp:

   <?php
    namespace App\Traits;
    trait CustomTimestamps {
        public function perform(string $action)
        {
            $this->update([
                $action . 'ed_by' => auth()->id(),
                $action . 'ed_at' => now(),
            ]);
        }

        public function undo(string $action)
        {
            $this->update([
                $action . 'ed_by' => null,
                $action . 'ed_at' => null,
            ]);
        }

        public function check(string $action)
        {
           $at = $action . 'ed_at';
           $by = $action . 'ed_by';
           return !empty($this->{$by}) && !empty($this->{$at});
        }
    }