Laravel: isDirty() & wasChanged():

What Are These Methods?

Laravel provides powerful methods to track attribute changes in Eloquent models:

• isDirty() - Check if attributes changed BEFORE saving
• wasChanged() - Check if attributes changed AFTER saving
• isClean() - Opposite of isDirty()
• getOriginal() - Get original values
• getChanges() - Get all changes after save

Eloquent includes the isDirty, isClean, and wasChanged methods to help you inspect a model’s state and see how its attributes differ from their original values when the model was first loaded. These methods make it easy to detect whether any fields have been modified, remain unchanged, or were updated during the last save operation.

The Difference

$user = User::find(1);
$user->name = 'John Doe';

// Before save
$user->isDirty();          // true
$user->isDirty('name');    // true
$user->wasChanged();       // false

$user->save();

// After save
$user->isDirty();          // false
$user->wasChanged();       // true
$user->wasChanged('name'); // true

Key Point: isDirty() = before save, wasChanged() = after save

All Available Methods

Check for Changes

// Check if ANY attribute changed
$model->isDirty();           // Before save
$model->isClean();           // Opposite of isDirty()
$model->wasChanged();        // After save

// Check SPECIFIC attribute
$model->isDirty('email');
$model->isClean('email');
$model->wasChanged('email');

// Check MULTIPLE attributes
$model->isDirty(['name', 'email']);
$model->wasChanged(['name', 'email']);

// Get original value (before changes)
$model->getOriginal();           // All original values
$model->getOriginal('email');    // Specific field

// Get changes (after save)
$model->getChanges();            // All changed values

// Get previous values (before last save)
$model->getPrevious();           // All previous values
$model->getPrevious('email');    // Specific field