Laravel Models

I don't follow, I never use a constructor to create a record or update, I just use regular methods, same in php, java, asp.net, etc

    public function petUpdate(Request $request) {
      // Auth here however you need

        $validator = \Illuminate\Support\Facades\Validator::make($request->all(), [
                    'species' => 'required',
        ]);

        if ($validator->fails()) {
            return response()->json($validator->errors(), 422);
        }

        $petid = $request->input('petid');
        $species = $request->input('species');
        $postdata = [
            'species' => $species
        ];
        DB::table('dc_pets')
                ->where('petid', $petid)
                ->update($postdata);
        return Response::json(['success' => 'all okay']);
        
    }

For heavy search queries I use scopes in model.

You could view https://laracasts.com/series/laravel-8-from-scratch

and

https://laracasts.com/series/laravel-6-from-scratch very in depth series here.

But when all is done, you have a database record stored, I don't even understand calling it an object.

Example: https://laravel.com/docs/8.x/eloquent#inserts

When you see things like:

        $flight = new Flight;

        $flight->name = $request->name;

        $flight->save();
    }

That's an active record thing, in the background you have a regular insert.

@tomasnorre yes object is for us in coding, so object is correct in that sense. But it's just data stored.

I try not to get lost in all the fancy terminology. Like OOP and MVC. OOP is for us humans to separate code. But runtime all code is procedural, broken down to line by line for the processor.

Don't forget, eloquent (active record) does have to convert to normal sql and pdo at runtime.

I once used procedural php, but once I used an MVC framework I never looked back.

But I look at things different, I have contributed to another framework, thus what someone sees as a "shortcut", you already know in the background (vendor folder) there is regular normal php making that happen.

But you will find laravel easy I'm sure.

I'm aware of the ORM part, I just like the "Symfony"-way of having Objects mapped with Database over Doctrine Annotations.

namespace App\Entity;

use App\Repository\ExerciseRepository;
use Doctrine\ORM\Mapping as ORM;

/**
 * @ORM\Entity(repositoryClass=ExerciseRepository::class)
 */
class Exercise
{
    /**
     * @ORM\Id()
     * @ORM\GeneratedValue()
     * @ORM\Column(type="integer")
     */
    private ?int $id = null;

    /**
     * @ORM\Column(type="string", length=100)
     */
    private ?string $title;

Here I know the properties on the object, like I would on a value object, but it's mapped over annotation.

Does something like this exists for Laravel as well?