Set default value in the migration

@shadrixs

The following solution works with Eloquent Model.

For default JSON data you can do something like this in your Model

<?php

namespace App;

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;

class User extends Model
{

protected $attributes = [
        'settings' => '{
            "mail": {
            "hasNewsletter" : false
            },
            "time": {
            "timezone" : ""
            }
        }'
    ];
}

Then the default value will be {"mail": {"hasNewsletter" : false},"time": {"timezone" :""} in your DB if your input is null. However the existing values in BD will be unchanged and will have to change manually if you need.

If you want to keep your existing DB values null (and/or when null) but want to get as the above default json by Eloquent, you can add the following method in the Model:

    protected function castAttribute($key, $value)
    {
        if ($this->getCastType($key) == 'array' && is_null($value)) {
            return '{
                    "mail":{
                        "hasNewsletter":false
                            },
                    "time":{
                         "timezone":""
                           }
                     }';
        }
        return parent::castAttribute($key, $value);
    }

Note: The above castAttribute method will return this same JSON/data for all null JSON columns of your model. It's better to set an empty array here.

Yeah, this is a tough one! However, there is a workaround for this. You can disable all model events before calling the factory

User::unsetEventDispatcher();

factory(User::class)->create([
    'settings' => json_encode([
        'mail' => [
            'hasNewsletter' => false
        ],
        'time' => [
            'timezone' => ''
        ]   
    ])
]);

If you want to enable it after again, you can do something like this

$dispatcher = User::getEventDispatcher();

User::unsetEventDispatcher();

factory(User::class)->create();

User:: setEventDispatcher($dispatcher);

Let me know if this works for you ;)

@tisuchi @bobbybouwmann Thank you both. But I will go with bobbybouwmann's answers. It works for me after adjusting something.

Thanks once again.