Utility helpers for Enums

PHP has had native Enumerations (Enums) since version 8.1 was released. However, they lack some convenience methods that I need for some operations in a project I'm working on.

We'll look at how I use a trait to add some functionality to my enum classes.

This is my HasEnumUtils trait:

<?php

namespace App\Enums;

use Illuminate\Support\Arr;

trait HasEnumUtils
{
    public static function names(): array
    {
        return array_column(self::cases(), 'name');
    }

    public static function values(): array
    {
        return array_column(self::cases(), 'value');
    }

    public static function toArray(): array
    {
        return array_combine(self::names(), self::values());
    }

    public static function random(): self
    {
        return Arr::random(self::cases());
    }
}

We include it as usual in an enum class that needs the additional functionality:

enum UserRole: string
{
    use HasEnumUtils;

    case ADMIN = 'admin';
    case EDITOR = 'editor';
    case MODERATOR = 'moderator';
    case READER = 'reader';
}

Usage

$allowedRoles = UserRole::names();
// ['ADMIN', 'EDITOR', 'MODERATOR', 'READER']

The names() method returns an array of all the enum case names. We're using a Backed Enum as an example but this is more useful for Pure Enums where there are no corresponding string values for cases.

---

$allowedRoles = UserRole::values();
// ['admin', 'editor', 'moderator', 'reader']

Similar to names(), the values() method returns an array of all the enum case values. This is handy when building options for a <select> tag in the UI, or the select function in Prompts.

You can also use it in your validation rules:

$request->validate([
    'role' => ['required', Rule::in(UserRole::values())],
]);

---

$roleMap = UserRole::toArray();
// [
//      'ADMIN' => 'admin',
//      'EDITOR' => 'editor',
//      'MODERATOR' => 'moderator',
//      'READER' => 'reader'
//]

The toArray() method combines the names and values into an associative array. This is useful if you want to create an associative array of case/value for an array map.

[
    'ADMIN' => 'admin',
    // ...
]
vs
[
    App\Enums\UserRole {#6432
      +name: "ADMIN",
      +value: "admin",
    },
    // ...
]

---

$randomRole = UserRole::random();
// UserRole::EDITOR

random() returns a random case. This is useful for generating random values in Eloquent factories.

public function definition()
{
    return [
        'name' => fake()->name(),
        'email' => fake()->unique()->safeEmail(),
        'role' => UserRole::random(),
        // other fields...
    ];
}

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