Introduction

You can easily cast your DTO properties by defining a casts method in your DTO:

protected function casts(): array
{
    return [
        'name' => new StringCast(),
        'age'  => new IntegerCast(),
        'created_at' => new CarbonImmutableCast(),
    ];
}

Alternatively, for simpler cases, you can use the Cast attribute:

use WendellAdriel\ValidatedDTO\Attributes\Cast;
use WendellAdriel\ValidatedDTO\Concerns\EmptyCasts;

class UserDTO extends ValidatedDTO
{
    use EmptyCasts;

    public string $name;

    public string $email;

    #[Cast(BooleanCast::class)]
    public bool $active;

    #[Cast(IntegerCast::class)]
    public ?int $age;

    #[Cast(type: ArrayCast::class, param: FloatCast::class)]
    public ?array $grades;
}

If you're using attributes to define the casting of your properties or if you don't have any casting for the properties, you can use the EmptyCasts trait to avoid having to define the casts() method.