Unable to use Laravel Factory in Tinker

Question

I am unable Model Factory in Laravel Tinker.

//ItemFactory.php

class ItemFactory extends Factory
{
    /**
     * The name of the factory's corresponding model.
     *
     * @var string
     */
    protected $model = Item::class;

    /**
     * Define the model's default state.
     *
     * @return array
     */
    public function definition()
    {
        return [
            'name' => $this->faker->name,
            'slug' => $this->faker->slug(5, true),
            'code' => $this->faker->words(5, true),
            'description' => $this->faker->sentence,
            'price' => $this->faker->randomNumber(1000, 10000),
            'size' => $this->faker->randomElement(['Small', 'Medium', 'Large',]),
        ];
    }
}

Inside Tinker

>>> factory(App\Item::class)->create();

It throws me an error:

PHP Fatal error: Call to undefined function factory() in Psy Shell code on line 1

Answer 1

In Laravel 8.x release notes:

Eloquent model factories have been entirely re-written as class based factories and improved to have first-class relationship support.

Global factory() function is removed as of Laravel 8. Instead, you should now use model factory classes.

1. Create a factory:

php artisan make:factory ItemFactory --model=Item

2. Make sure that Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Factories\HasFactory trait is imported in your model:

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Factories\HasFactory;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;

class Item extends Model
{
    use HasFactory;

    // ...
}

3. Use it like this:

$item = Item::factory()->make(); // Create a single App\Models\Item instance

// or

$items = Item::factory()->count(3)->make(); // Create three App\Models\Item instances

Use create method to persist them to the database:

$item = Item::factory()->create(); // Create a single App\Models\Item instance and persist to the database

// or

$items = Item::factory()->count(3)->create(); // Create three App\Models\Item instances and persist to the database

---

Being said that, if you still want to provide support for the previous generation of model factories within Laravel 8.x, you can use laravel/legacy-factories package.