[13.x] feat: add randomOrFactory and randomOrFactoryCreate methods

[calebdw]

Hello!

These are some factory helpers that I've been using for years in factories/seeders/tests and it was suggested that I upstream them.

There's many times that I want to grab a random model instead of always creating creating a new factory instance, but I don't want the code to fail if no records exist, some common use-cases:

• having fewer "wide" parent models that are used across a variety of relations vs. having a ton of "narrow" parent models that are only used for one relationship
• grabbing a random record from pre-seeded db in tests is generally faster than generating a new one and writing to db (could also have more expensive afterMaking/afterCreating logic that's avoided)
• etc.

Examples

final class CronLogFactory extends Factory
{
    public function definition(): array
    {
        return [
-            'cron_id' => fn () => Cron::inRandomOrder()->first() ?? Cron::factory(),
+            'cron_id' => fn () => Cron::randomOrFactory(),
            // ...
        ];
    }
}

It also allow customizing the query or factory:

public function configure(): static
{
    return $this->afterMaking(function (Contact $contact): void {
-        $contact->customer_id ??= Customer::query()
-            ->inRandomOrder()
-            ->engineering()
-            ->first()?->id
-            ?? Customer::factory()
-                ->engineering()
-                ->create()->id
+        $contact->customer_id ??= Customer::randomOrFactoryCreate(
+            fn ($q) => $q->whereEngineering(),
+            fn ($f) => $f->engineering(),
+        )->id;
    });
}

Thanks!

[DarkGhostHunter]

I believe this belongs more to the Factory instance rather than the model itself, but the problem is that when you go into the factory, you assume already you're creating models that are not in the database itself.

It could be Cron::factory()->firstRandom($callback = null) to retrieve a random model, allow to use a callback to alter the query (like only cron for a month or after a date).

It could be Cron::factory()->firstRandomOrCreate() and Cron::factory()->firstRandomOrMake(). If it's a callback, use it as query modifier, otherwise assume these are attributes.

[calebdw]

• the factory does not query the database which is why I placed it on the trait---good middle ground between queries and factory
• the methods allow passing a count for multiple models to be returned / generated---so firstRandom doesn't make sense
• the methods need to allow both adding scopes to the builder and adding states to the factory---the methods are not guaranteed to match

[DarkGhostHunter]

Then I don't see any problem in doing Cron::inRandomOrder()->first() ?? Cron::factory().

[taylorotwell]

Thanks for your pull request to Laravel!

Unfortunately, I'm going to delay merging this code for now. To preserve our ability to adequately maintain the framework, we need to be very careful regarding the amount of code we include.

If applicable, please consider releasing your code as a package so that the community can still take advantage of your contributions!