Casts

The Union cast lets a single text column hold a mix of value types — boolean, integer, float, array, or string — and read each one back as the type you stored. It is useful for generic key/value tables (like the settings store) where one value column must hold whatever a given row needs.

Usage

Apply the cast to the column on your model:

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
use Redot\Casts\Union;

class Setting extends Model
{
    protected function casts(): array
    {
        return ['value' => Union::class];
    }
}

Now assign different types to the same column and read them back as stored:

$setting->value = true;          // reads back as bool
$setting->value = 42;            // reads back as int
$setting->value = 3.14;          // reads back as float
$setting->value = ['a' => 1];    // reads back as array
$setting->value = 'hello';       // reads back as string
$setting->save();

Behavior

• Booleans — round-trip exactly.
• Integers and floats — stored as strings in the column and cast back to int / float on read ("42" → 42, "3.14" → 3.14).
• Arrays — stored as JSON and decoded back to an associative array (never an object).
• Leading-zero and oversized numeric strings stay strings — values like "007" / "01001234567" (leading zeros) and integers outside PHP's int range are left as strings so they are not corrupted.
• Malformed JSON throws — invalid stored JSON (or an unencodable array) raises an exception on read/write.

Related

• Settings — the settings store that uses this cast.
• Models — the models shipped with the package.