Find which model method is triggering the Event

I'm using Laravel's Event & Listener functionality to detect the following model actions and trigger some application logic.

app/models/MealFood

/**
 * The event map for the model.
 *
 * Allows for object-based events for native Eloquent events.
 *
 * @var array
 */
protected $dispatchesEvents = [
    'created'  => MealFoodEvent::class,
    'updated'  => MealFoodEvent::class,
    'deleted'  => MealFoodEvent::class
];

app/events/MealFoodEvent

public $mealFood;

/**
 * Create a new event instance.
 *
 * @param MealFood $mealFood
 */
public function __construct(MealFood $mealFood)
{
    $this->mealFood = $mealFood;
}

app/listeners/MealFoodListener

public function handle(MealFoodEvent $event)
{
    $mealFood = $event->mealFood;
}

Is it possible to detect what model action triggered the event? I want to be able to know if the record triggering the event was created/updated/deleted. Right know I'm using soft deletes to check if the record was deleted but how can I know if the record was updated or created?

Solution

Create 3 additional classes:

MealFoodCreatedEvent.php

class MealFoodCreatedEvent extends MealFoodEvent {}

MealFoodUpdatedEvent.php

class MealFoodUpdatedEvent extends MealFoodEvent {}

MealFoodDeletedEvent.php

class MealFoodDeletedEvent extends MealFoodEvent {}

Modify your model:

protected $dispatchesEvents = [
    'created'  => MealFoodCreatedEvent::class,
    'updated'  => MealFoodUpdatedEvent::class,
    'deleted'  => MealFoodDeletedEvent::class
];

Then in your event handler you can just do:

public function handle(MealFoodEvent $event)
{
    $mealFood = $event->mealFood;
    if ($event instanceof MealFoodCreatedEvent) { 
       // the event was "created
    }
}

The signature for handle still works because all your events extend MealFoodEvent

You can also make MealFoodEvent abstract since you will never need to create an instance of it directly.