Laravel Eloquent ignore attribute if not in table during insert

Question

I have a model Foo that corresponds to a table with the following columns.

id
description
user_id

I\'m setting the attributes of the Foo model individual

Answer 1

I understand this question is old but it was in top results for a recent search where I was trying to solve a similar problem and I think that this may be an ideal case for Laravel accessors/mutators. I have tested this on Laravel 5.6 but believe it may work as far back as 4.2.

By creating a mutator and accessor rather than a public property it will allow adding the field to fillable for mass assignment while still excluding it from the internal attributes (thus preventing it from errantly saving to the DB). I understand the original request excluded mass-assignment but that doesn't necessarily exclude this answer. I think an example will help:

class Foo extends Model
{
    //Allow bar in mass assignment
    protected $fillable = [
            "bar"
        ];

    /**
     * Store bar in protected variable instead of attributes
     * Because bar is not set in attributes, Laravel will not try to save it to database
     */
    protected $bar;

    /**
     * Mutator method to set bar's value
     */
    public function setBarAttribute($value)
    {
        $this->bar = $value;
    }

    /**
     * Accessor method to retrieve bar's value
     */ 
    public function getBarAttribute()
    {
        return $this->bar;
    }
}

When this model is created using mass-assignment the mutator (setBarAttribute) method will be called for bar if it exists in the mass-assigned values. Anytime the bar property is accessed the respective get/set method will be called. Because the mutator does not set the value of bar in the model's internal attributes variable the model will not save bar to the database.