Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Casts\ArrayObject not transforming into array

[qbaniewiadomski]

✏️ Describe the bug
In User model I have cast database column roles (which contains enum values in array format e.g. ["ADMIN","EMPLOYEE"]) to ArrayObject with Enums.

Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Casts\ArrayObject {#681 // app/Http/Controllers/UserController.php:118
  storage: array:1 [
    0 => 
App\Enum
\
UserRole {#687
      +name: "ADMIN"
      +value: "ADMIN"
    }
  ]
  flag::STD_PROP_LIST: false
  flag::ARRAY_AS_PROPS: false
  iteratorClass: "ArrayIterator"
}

When trying to return it in DTO as array, I receive:

App\\DTO\\Response\\User\\UserDto::__construct(): Argument #8 ($roles) must be of type array, Illuminate\\Database\\Eloquent\\Casts\\ArrayObject given, called in /app/vendor/spatie/laravel-data/src/Resolvers/DataFromArrayResolver.php on line 95

It worked fine in version 4.6.0
Currently I did workaround:

final class UserDto extends Data
{
    /** @var array<UserRole> $roles */
    #[Computed]
    public readonly array $roles;

    public function __construct(
        ArrayObject $roles,
    ) {
        $this->roles       = $roles->getArrayCopy();
    }
}

↪️ To Reproduce

User Model:

class User extends Authenticatable
{
[...]
    protected function casts(): array
    {
        return [
            'roles' => AsEnumArrayObject::class . ':' . UserRole::class,
        ];
    }
[...]
}

UserDto Class:

final class UserPreviewDto extends Data
{
    [...]
    /** @param array<UserRole> $roles */
    public function __construct(
        [...]
        public readonly array $roles = [],
    ) {
        [...]
    }
}

Than: UserDto::from($user)

✅ Expected behavior
Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Casts\ArrayObject should be casted to array, e.g.:

["ADMIN"]

🖥️ Versions

Laravel: 11.33.2
Laravel Data: 4.11.1
PHP: 8.3.14

[rust17]

After several hours of debugging, I traced the issue to this change. However, I couldn't find documentation supporting this usage. I make a PR to support if this functionality is desired.

[rubenvanassche]

This feels like valid behavior to me since you're using an ArrayObject cast within Eloquent which will return an ArrayObject, if you want this to work use an ArrayObject within your Data class. No idea why Laravel doesn't support casting into an array of enums but I don't think laravel-data should change types on the fly.