Meta

Introduction

A resource object may have a meta object containing non-standard meta-information about a resource that cannot be represented as an attribute or relationship.

Resource Meta

To define a resource object's meta, use the meta method, and return an array of meta information.

In the following example, we will serialize the model's created_at and updated_at values as meta, rather than as attributes:

namespace App\JsonApi\V1\Posts;

use LaravelJsonApi\Core\Resources\JsonApiResource;

class PostResource extends JsonApiResource
{

    /**
     * Get the resource's attributes.
     *
     * @param \Illuminate\Http\Request|null $request
     * @return iterable
     */
    public function attributes($request): iterable
    {
        return [
            'content' => $this->content,
            'slug' => $this->slug,
            'synopsis' => $this->synopsis,
            'title' => $this->title,
        ];
    }

    /**
     * Get the resource's meta.
     *
     * @param \Illuminate\Http\Request|null $request
     * @return iterable
     */
    public function meta($request): iterable
    {
        return [
            'createdAt' => $this->created_at,
            'updatedAt' => $this->updated_at,
        ];
    }

}

This would result in the following resource object:

{
  "type": "posts",
  "id": "123",
  "attributes": {
    "content": "...",
    "slug": "hello-world",
    "synopsis": "My first article.",
    "title": "Hello World!"
  },
  "meta": {
    "createdAt": "2020-07-10T12:42:17.000000Z",
    "updatedAt": "2020-07-10T13:53:01.000000Z"
  }
}

Conditional Meta

Sometimes you may wish to only include certain meta in a resource response if a given condition is met. For example, you may wish to only include a value if the current user is an "administrator". The meta method therefore supports using the when() and mergeWhen() methods to add conditional meta - in exactly the same way as conditional attributes.

For example:

public function meta($request): iterable
{
    return [
        'secret' => $this->when($request->user()->isAdmin(), 'secret-value'),
    ];
}

Identifier Meta

In addition to resource meta, a resource identifier may have a meta member. A resource identifier is used when a resource appears in a relationship.

If you would like a resource to have meta when it is serialized as a resource identifier, implement the identifierMeta method on your resource class:

/**
 * Get meta for the resource's identifier.
 *
 * @return array
 */
protected function identifierMeta(): array
{
    return ['foo' => 'bar'];
}

If the resource then appeared in a to-one relation, the relationship data would serialize as follows:

{
  "data": {
    "type": "posts",
    "id": "123",
    "meta": {
      "foo": "bar"
    }
  }
}

And if it appeared in a to-many relation:

{
  "data": [
    {
      "type": "posts",
      "id": "123",
      "meta": {
        "foo": "bar"
      }
    }
  ]
}