Effortless API Response Control with Laravel Resources

When developing APIs, it’s often essential to customize responses based on specific users or situations. For example, you might want to display sensitive data only to administrators, include related models only when explicitly requested, or adapt your response format based on the endpoint. Laravel’s API Resources provide an elegant solution for these scenarios by offering conditional attributes.

These powerful tools let you create flexible and efficient APIs, keeping your code clean while catering to varying needs.

Key Conditional Methods in Laravel API Resources

Laravel provides several methods for conditionally including attributes in your API responses:

1. when(condition, value, default)
   Includes an attribute only if the condition is true.
2. whenLoaded(relation, value, default)
   Includes a relationship only if it has been explicitly loaded.
3. whenNotNull(value)
   Adds an attribute only if it’s not null.
4. whenHas(attribute, value, default)
   Includes an attribute only if it exists on the model.

Basic Example: Conditional Email Display