No explanation for app/Models directory in v8?

[SevenOutman]

Hi, I'm recently upgrading my Laravel app from v7 to v8, and I noticed that the scaffolding now contains the app/Models directory which was claimed to be missing intentionally in versions before v8. There's nothing mentioning this change in v8 upgrade guide so I don't know if the officially recommended approach has changed in v8 and whether I should move my model classes into this app/Models directory.

What is worse is that that when I moved model class files into app/Models directory and change their namespaces to App\Models, it breaks existing morph relations immediately because the full class names were persisted in database. By the time I notice this problem, there're already new morph relation records using the new App\Models class names in my database. I have no way to either continue or revert this change without manually update my existing data records. And again there's no documentation mentioning this.

[devcircus]

If I'm not mistaken, there's no reason to change anything. I think the "make:model" command will check to see if you have an "app/models" directory, and if so, it will place models there, otherwise it will place them in the "app" directory as in previous versions.

I assume there was no reason to mention in the upgrade guide since it's not necessary to change anything.

[SevenOutman]

@dennisprudlo The key point in my view is that the v7 docs just said they don't use Models directory as an intentional decision. Then what factor makes them suddenly change their minds? If the factor is so important then should users follow this new pattern and update their directory structure? And how should users adopt this migration without breaking their existing app? Those should be explained in documentation, not let users guess IMO.

[crynobone]

Did you read https://laravel.com/docs/8.x/releases#models-directory

[dennisprudlo]

@SevenOutman I guess the reason the upgrade guide doesn't contain a section informing you about the new app/Models directory is, that it's simply not necessary to update the models. If you move alle your models from app to app/Models you will have to update all used model namespaces in other classes. And even if your IDE takes care of that sometimes you may use string concatenation to create a namespace path and your IDE may not identify it.

[SevenOutman]

@crynobone Thanks! I remember seeing this section when I was trying to upgrade from v6 (but ended up v7 at last). I searched "models" in upgrade guide but got no results, not realizing it was in the release notes. I have been always speaking highly of the clear and instructive upgrade guide of Laravel so I got so confused this time.

[SevenOutman]

@dennisprudlo That makes sense, thanks! I was just trying to keep everything in sync with the latest scaffolding when upgrading.