Optional vs. Nullable in Spatie Laravel Data: What's the Difference?

[linyuqing222]

What's the difference between marking a property as Optional in Laravel Data and using a nullable type (e.g. ?string)?
Are they equivalent, or is there a specific benefit to using optional properties?

Perhaps it would be helpful if the documentation included an example for further clarification.

Many thanks!

[rrrcch]

Marking a property as optional means that if its value is null, it will be omitted when transforming the object. On the other hand, using a nullable type (?string) ensures the property is always present in the transformed array/JSON, even if its value is null.

[linyuqing222]

Thanks for your clarification~