Laravel reindex array for json casting

helpers.php

<?php
if(!function_exists('reindexArray')) {
    function reindexArray($array) {
        if(!is_array($array)) {
            return $array;
        }
        $keys = array_keys($array);
        foreach($keys as $key) {
            // If at least one key is not numeric, we don't reindex
            if(!is_numeric($key)) {
                return $array;
            }
        }
        // If we are here, all keys are numeric, so we reindex
        return array_values($array);
    }
}

if(!function_exists('reindexArrayRecusrive')) {
    function reindexArrayRecusrive($array) {
        return $array;
        if(!is_array($array)) {
            return $array;
        }
        foreach($array as $key => $value) {
            if(is_array($value)) {
                $array[$key] = reindexArrayRecusrive($value);
            }
        }
        return reindexArray($array);
    }
}

Json.php

<?php

namespace App\Casts;
 
use Illuminate\Contracts\Database\Eloquent\CastsAttributes;
 
class Json implements CastsAttributes
{
    /**
     * Cast the given value.
     *
     * @param  \Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model  $model
     * @param  string  $key
     * @param  mixed  $value
     * @param  array  $attributes
     * @return array
     */
    public function get($model, $key, $value, $attributes)
    {
        return json_decode($value, true);
    }
 
    /**
     * Prepare the given value for storage.
     *
     * @param  \Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model  $model
     * @param  string  $key
     * @param  array  $value
     * @param  array  $attributes
     * @return string
     */
    public function set($model, $key, $value, $attributes)
    {
        return json_encode(reindexArrayRecusrive($value));
    }
}

Model.php

<?php

namespace App\Models;

use App\Casts\Json;

class MyModel extends Model
{
    public $casts = [
        'fields' => Json::class,
        // ...
    ];
    
    // ...
}

Why.md

The problem

• A numerical array is converted to json for a REST API.
• The array is missing some indexes, maybe because we removed some items from it.
• json_encode, and thus Laravel, makes it an object, when we want an array.

// PHP input
json_encode([0 => "foo", 2 => "bar"]);

// Wa we get
{"0": "foo", "2": "bar"}

// What we want
["foo", "bar"]

The solution

We must re-index the array. For more complex data, we must do so recursively. We use laravel custom casts to make it easier and global.

Non laravel cases

Just add the reindexArrayRecusrive() helper somewhere and call json_encode(reindexArrayRecusrive($value));