Laravel 9: guide with Eloquent Mutators optimization guide on Serialized Data
After trying multiple solutions online, I still can't figure this out. I'm relatively new to this, so bear with me. I'm having trouble with Eloquent mutators not being applied when I'm retrieving data from the database. I have a model called `User` with a mutator to capitalize the first name, like this: ```php class User extends Model { protected $fillable = ['first_name', 'last_name']; public function getFirstNameAttribute($value) { return ucfirst($value); } } ``` However, when I serialize this `User` model to JSON and then deserialize it, the first name is coming back in lowercase: ```php $user = User::find(1); $jsonUser = $user->toJson(); $decodedUser = json_decode($jsonUser); // Accessing first_name from the decoded user $firstName = $decodedUser->first_name; ``` When I check the value of `$firstName`, it's not capitalized as expected. I also tried defining the mutator as a `setFirstNameAttribute` but that didn't help either. I need the capitalization to be consistent whether pulling directly from the database or when working with serialized data. I found some old threads suggesting that mutators only apply when the attributes are accessed through the model, but I thought they would also apply when the model is serialized. Is there a way to ensure that the mutators are applied even after serialization? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks! Any ideas what could be causing this?