auditable-configuration.md

Auditable Configuration

The auditing process can behave differently, depending on what has been set.

Include attributes

The $auditInclude property acts as an attribute white list, meaning that only the property names in that array will be audited.

<?php
namespace App;

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
use OwenIt\Auditing\Contracts\Auditable;

class Article extends Model implements Auditable
{
    use \OwenIt\Auditing\Auditable;

    /**
     * Attributes to include in the Audit.
     *
     * @var array
     */
    protected $auditInclude = [
        'title',
        'content',
    ];

    // ...
}

{tip} The default value is an empty array, which treats all model properties as OK for auditing.

Exclude attributes

On the other hand, the $auditExclude acts as a black list, excluding all the properties in the array from being audited.

<?php
namespace App;

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
use OwenIt\Auditing\Contracts\Auditable;

class Article extends Model implements Auditable
{
    use \OwenIt\Auditing\Auditable;

    /**
     * Attributes to exclude from the Audit.
     *
     * @var array
     */
    protected $auditExclude = [
        'published',
    ];

    // ...
}

{tip} The default value is an empty array, which treats all model properties as OK for auditing.

Strict audits

By default, the $hidden and $visible values of a model aren't considered when including/excluding audited properties. When the $auditStrict property is set to true, the $hidden and $visible properties will be used in the same fashion as the $auditExclude and $auditInclude, respectively.

Globally

This is done in the config/audit.php configuration file.

return [
    // ...

    'strict' => true,

    // ...
];

Locally

This is done on a per Auditable model basis, by assigning a bool value to the $auditStrict attribute.

{tip} A locally defined strict value always takes precedence over a globally defined one.

<?php
namespace App;

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
use OwenIt\Auditing\Contracts\Auditable;

class Article extends Model implements Auditable
{
    use \OwenIt\Auditing\Auditable;

    /**
     * Should the audit be strict?
     *
     * @var bool
     */
    protected $auditStrict = true;

    // ...
}

Audit timestamps

The standard auditing behaviour is to ignore all default timestamp attributes (created_at, updated_at and deleted_at). If there's a need to include them in the Audit data, just set the $auditTimestamps attribute to true.

Globally

This is done in the config/audit.php configuration file.

return [
    // ...

    'timestamps' => true,

    // ...
];

Locally

This is done on a per Auditable model basis, by assigning a bool value to the $auditTimestamps attribute.

{tip} A locally defined timestamps value always takes precedence over a globally defined one.

<?php
namespace App;

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
use OwenIt\Auditing\Contracts\Auditable;

class Article extends Model implements Auditable
{
    use \OwenIt\Auditing\Auditable;

    /**
     * Should the timestamps be audited?
     *
     * @var bool
     */
    protected $auditTimestamps = true;

    // ...
}

Number of Audit records

Out of the box, there isn't a limit for the number of Audit records that are kept for an Auditable model. To keep the records to a minimum, set the $auditThreshold property to a positive int of your choice.

Globally

This is done in the config/audit.php configuration file.

return [
    // ...

    'threshold' => 10,

    // ...
];

Locally

This is done on a per Auditable model basis, by assigning an int value to the $auditThreshold attribute.

{tip} A locally defined threshold always takes precedence over a globally defined one.

<?php
namespace App;

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
use OwenIt\Auditing\Contracts\Auditable;

class Article extends Model implements Auditable
{
    use \OwenIt\Auditing\Auditable;

    /**
     * Audit threshold.
     *
     * @var int
     */
    protected $auditThreshold = 10;

    // ...
}

The above configuration, will only keep the 10 latest Audit records.

{tip} By default, the $auditThreshold value is set to 0 (zero), which stands for no limit.

Audit events

On a default configuration, the created, updated, deleted and restored Eloquent events will trigger an audit.

When not all events are required for auditing, the auditEvents property can be set with the ones that are.

Globally

This is done in the config/audit.php configuration file.

return [
    // ...

    'events' => [
        'deleted',
        'restored',
    ],

    // ...
];

Locally

This is done on a per Auditable model basis, by assigning an array value to the $auditEvents attribute.

{tip} Locally defined events always take precedence over globally defined ones.

<?php
namespace App;

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
use OwenIt\Auditing\Contracts\Auditable;

class Article extends Model implements Auditable
{
    use \OwenIt\Auditing\Auditable;

    /**
     * Auditable events.
     *
     * @var array
     */
    protected $auditEvents = [
        'deleted',
        'restored',
    ];

    // ...
}

The above example only takes the deleted and restored events into account.

Custom attribute getters

Here's how a custom method for the restored event can be defined:

protected $auditEvents = [
    'deleted',
    'restored' => 'myRestoredEventAttributes',
];

The deleted event is handled by the default getDeletedEventAttributes() method, while the restored event will be handled by a custom myRestoredEventAttributes() method.

Event wildcards

Wildcards can be used for event names, making it easy to define the same attribute getter to multiple events.

protected $auditEvents = [
    '*ated' => 'getMultiEventAttributes',
];

The created and updated events will be handled by a custom getMultiEventAttributes() method

{note} Support for custom attribute getters and wildcards has been present since version 4.1.4.

Retrieved event

Since Eloquent 5.5.0, there's a new retrieved event. While supported by this package, retrieved audits are not enabled by default.

The main reason is to avoid a huge amount of Audit records, specially on busy applications, so enable it with care.

Keep in mind that when caching is active and depending on how it's configured, the retrieved event might not fire as often!

{tip} If tou get a PHP Fatal error: Maximum function nesting level of '512' reached, aborting! after enabling the retrieved event, make sure to check the troubleshooting guide for help.

Enable/Disable

From version 6.0.1 going forward, enabling and disabling the auditing functionality has become much easier.

Considering the Article model from the previous examples, here's how it works:

<?php

// Disable auditing from this point on
Article::disableAuditing();

// This operation won't be audited
Article::create([
    // ...
]);

// Re-enable auditing
Article::enableAuditing();