Formatting

Audit Trail Formatter

To customise a model's audit trail entries, create a Formatter class and enable it for your model.

namespace Acme\Models\Users\Audit;

use Aedart\Audit\Formatters\BaseFormatter;

class UserAuditTrailFormatter extends BaseFormatter
{
    // ...remaining not shown here...
}

Enable Formatter

Specify your formatter's classpath in the auditTrailRecordFormatter() method, inside your model.

namespace Acme\Models;

use Acme\Models\Users\Audit\UserAuditTrailFormatter;
use Aedart\Contracts\Audit\Formatter;
use Aedart\Audit\Concerns\ChangeRecording;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Auth\User as Authenticatable;

class User extends Authenticatable
{
    use ChangeRecording;
    
    public function auditTrailRecordFormatter(): string|Formatter|null
    {
        return UserAuditTrailFormatter::class;
    }
}

Hide Attributes

Use the hide() method to prevent specific model attributes from being recorded in the audit trail.

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;

class UserAuditTrailFormatter extends BaseFormatter
{
    public function __construct(Model $model)
    {
        parent::__construct($model);
        
        $this->hide([
            'last_login',
            'updated_at'
        ]);
    }
}

Default hidden

If you do not specify any hidden attributes in your formatter, then the following attributes are automatically marked as hidden:

Hidden Attribute (inside your Model)
Default Timestamps

Hidden attributes in Model

Regardless of what attributes you mark as hidden in your formatter, the model's hidden attributes are always excluded from audit trail entries.

class User extends Authenticatable
{
    use ChangeRecording;
    
    // These attributes are automaticall excluded in the audit trail!
    protected $hidden = [
        'password',
        'remember_token',
    ];
    
    //...remaining not shown
}

When you do mark certain attributes to be hidden from audit trail entries and also wish to hide your model's "regular" timestamps (created_at, updated_at and deleted_at), then you can obtain these using the timestampAttributes() method.

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;

class UserAuditTrailFormatter extends BaseFormatter
{
    public function __construct(Model $model)
    {
        parent::__construct($model);
        
        $this->hide([
            $model->getKeyName(),
            'last_login',
            ...$this->timestampAttributes()
        ]);
    }
}

Format Attributes

To format your model's attributes, use the formatOriginal() and formatChanged() methods.
Both methods support the following arguments:

$data: The original or changed attributes, if available.
$type: The event type, e.g. created, updated, deleted, restored...etc.

For the sake of simplicity, the following example uses the same formatting for both the "original" and "changed" attributes.

class UserAuditTrailFormatter extends BaseFormatter
{
    // ...previous not shown...
    
    public function formatOriginal(array|null $data, string $type): array|null
    {
        return $this->applyFormatting($data, $type);
    }
    
    public function formatChanged(array|null $data, string $type): array|null
    {
        return $this->applyFormatting($data, $type);
    }
    
    /**
     * Your custom formatting method... 
     * 
     * @param array|null $data
     * @param string $type Ignored in this example...
     * 
     * @return array|null
     */
    public function applyFormatting(array|null $data, string $type): array|null
    {
        if (!isset($data)) {
            return null;
        }
        
        if (array_key_exists('job_id')) {
            $data['job'] = $this->getModel()->job->name;
            unset($data['job_id']);
        }
        
        return $data;
    }
}

Format Message

Depending on the circumstances, a change that results in a new audit trail entry might contain a custom message. The message can be modified via the formatMessage() method.

It accepts the following arguments:

$type: The event type, e.g. created, updated, deleted, restored...etc.
$message: Eventual message associated with the change.

use \Aedart\Contracts\Audit\Types;

class UserAuditTrailFormatter extends BaseFormatter
{
    // ...previous not shown...
    
    public function formatMessage(
        string $type,
        string|null $message = null
    ): string|null
    {
        // Use the provided message, if any... 
        if (isset($message)) {
            return $message;
        }
    
        // Provide a default message to be associated with the change...
        return match($type) {
            Types::CREATED => 'New user account was created',
            Types::UPDATED => 'User account was changed',
            Types::DELETED, Types::FORCE_DELETED => 'User account has been deleted',
            default => "{$type} event occurred, user account changed..."
        }
    }
}

Omit Changes for specific Events

In some situations, it might not be prudent to store any attributes (original or changed), in the audit trail entry. You can prevent all attributes from being stored in an entry, by using the omit() method. It accepts the following arguments:

$types: The event type(s), e.g. created, updated, deleted, restored...etc.

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;

class UserAuditTrailFormatter extends BaseFormatter
{
    public function __construct(Model $model)
    {
        parent::__construct($model);
        
        $this->omit('my-custom-event');
    }
}

Default Behaviour

By default, changes are omitted for the following events:

deleted
force-deleted
restored

Onward

For additional possibilities to format and customise audit trail entries, please review the source code of \Aedart\Audit\Formatters\BaseFormatter.