Two Overlooked Laravel Features: `fresh()` and Attribute Visibility

Source: Dev.to

Reloading Models with fresh()

Laravel’s fresh method allows you to reload a model or an entire collection from the database, ensuring you are working with the most up-to-date data.

You can also pass relationship names to fresh, and they will be reloaded alongside the model.

use App\Models\User;

$users = User::has('comments', 1)->with('comments')->get();

// Modify the first comment locally (not persisted)
$users->first()->comments->first()->body = 'Updated body';

// Reload users and their comments from the database
$users = $users->fresh('comments');

Controlling Serialization with visible and hidden

Laravel provides the visible and hidden properties to control which attributes appear when a model is converted to an array or JSON.

These properties also accept relationship names, allowing you to explicitly show or hide relationships during serialization.

use Illuminate\Foundation\Auth\User as Authenticatable;

class User extends Authenticatable
{
    /**
     * The attributes that should be visible in arrays.
     *
     * @var array
     */
    protected $visible = [
        'name',
        'email',
        'created_at',
        'comments', // one-to-many relationship
    ];
}

https://github.com/digging-code-blog/community-tips