Spatie activity_log: which method writes to which column? 🐘

Posted on April 29, 2026 by Ceecee Newman

If you’re using spatie/laravel-activitylog, you’ve probably written something like activity()->event(…)->log(…) a hundred times without thinking about where each piece lands in the database. The fluent API is friendly, but the column mapping isn’t obvious until you go look — so here it is in one place.

The package writes to a single table called activity_log. Every chained method on the builder corresponds to one column on that row. 💡

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activity()
    ->useLog('SyncCampaignUsersJob')
    ->event('Sync user without detaching')
    ->performedOn($campaign)
    ->causedBy($actor)
    ->withProperties(['chunk' => '3/20', 'count' => 100])
    ->log('Processing chunk 3/20 (100 users).');

That single fluent call writes one row. Here’s the full mapping:

Method Column(s) What it stores
useLog(“string”) log_name Filterable bucket like “Auth” or “SyncCampaignUsersJob”. Never leave empty — defaults to the literal string “default”, which makes filtering useless.
log(“string”) description Free-form, human-readable message. Returned by $activity->description.
event(“string”) event Short verb-ish label like “created”, “updated”, “Synced user with detaching”. Useful for grouping similar actions.
performedOn($model) subject_type + subject_id Polymorphic reference to the affected model. e.g. “App\Models\Campaign” + 6.
causedBy($user) causer_type + causer_id Polymorphic reference to the actor. Pass a model instance or just the ID.
withProperties([…]) properties Arbitrary JSON. Great for structured context: counts, IDs, batch labels, before/after diffs.

The empty-useLog gotcha 🪤

Here’s the failure mode worth burning into memory. This call:

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activity()
    ->event('Sync user without detaching')
    ->performedOn($campaign)
    ->causedBy($actor)
    ->log('Synced 100 users.');

…silently writes log_name = “default”. Six months later you open the activity log dashboard, filter by log name, and you’re staring at 47,000 rows in the default bucket. Always add useLog() with a meaningful string. The class name of the job or service writing the log is a perfectly fine default — future-you will thank present-you when grep’ing through audit history.

One more nuance: causer_type

If you pass an integer to causedBy(), the package needs to know what model that ID points to. By default it assumes your auth user model (set in config/auth.php). If your causers are sometimes a User and sometimes a SystemActor or a tenant model, pass the model instance instead of the ID — the polymorphic columns will resolve correctly and querying back becomes painless.

That’s the whole mental model: one row, one chained call, one column per method. Keep useLog() populated and you’ll have a queryable audit trail instead of a blob of “default” entries. 🎯

Posted in php | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

The Null Coalescing Operator: A Small PHP Feature That Quietly Changed Everything

Posted on April 22, 2026 by Ceecee Newman

If you’ve been writing PHP for a while, you probably remember the days of nested „isset()” checks cluttering up every template and controller. Since PHP 7, there’s a much cleaner way — and if you haven’t fully embraced it yet, it’s worth a second look.

The null coalescing operator (??) returns the left operand if it exists and isn’t null, otherwise the right. No warnings, no notices, no ceremony.

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<?php
// The old way — verbose and easy to get wrong
$username = isset($_GET['user']) ? $_GET['user'] : 'guest';

// With null coalescing — same behavior, far less noise
$username = $_GET['user'] ?? 'guest';

// It chains too, which is where it really shines
$config = $userConfig['theme'] ?? $siteConfig['theme'] ?? 'default';

PHP 7.4 took it a step further with the null coalescing assignment operator (??=), which only assigns if the variable is currently null or unset:

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<?php
$options = ['timeout' => 30];

// Only set 'retries' if it isn't already defined
$options['retries'] ??= 3;
$options['timeout'] ??= 60; // stays 30 — already set

print_r($options);
// Array ( [timeout] => 30 [retries] => 3 )

One subtle thing to keep in mind: ?? only reacts to null or unset — not to falsy values like „0″, „””, or „false”. That’s usually what you want, but it’s a meaningful difference from the older ?: (Elvis) operator, which falls back on any falsy value.

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<?php
$count = 0;

echo $count ?? 10;  // prints 0 — because 0 is not null
echo $count ?: 10;  // prints 10 — because 0 is falsy

Small syntax, big quality-of-life improvement. If your codebase still has rows of „isset()” ternaries, refactoring them is one of those low-risk cleanups that pays off every time someone reads the file next. 🐘

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Did You Know? Python’s Walrus Operator Can Make Your Code Cleaner

Posted on April 22, 2026 by Ceecee Newman

Did you know? Since Python 3.8, you can use the walrus operator ( := ) to assign a value to a variable as part of an expression. It’s a small piece of syntax that can meaningfully tidy up loops and comprehensions where you’d otherwise compute the same value twice.

Here’s a classic example — reading lines from a file until you hit an empty line:

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# Without the walrus operator
with open("data.txt") as f:
line = f.readline()
while line:
print(line.strip())
line = f.readline()

# With the walrus operator — assign and test in one step
with open("data.txt") as f:
while (line := f.readline()):
print(line.strip())

It’s also handy in list comprehensions when you want to filter on a computed value without recomputing it:

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numbers = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

# Keep only squares greater than 20, without squaring twice
big_squares = [sq for n in numbers if (sq := n * n) &gt; 20]

print(big_squares)
# [25, 36, 49, 64, 81, 100]

A word of caution: the walrus operator is powerful but easy to overuse. Reach for it when it genuinely removes duplication or makes intent clearer — not just because it’s clever. 🐍

Posted in Python | Tagged | Leave a comment

Did You Know? Python Dictionaries Preserve Insertion Order

Posted on April 22, 2026 by Ceecee Newman

Did you know? Since Python 3.7, the built-in

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dict

type officially preserves the order in which keys are inserted. Before that, if you needed ordering guarantees you had to reach for

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collections.OrderedDict

. Today, a plain dictionary is enough for most cases.

Here’s a small demonstration:

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# Keys stay in the order they were added
user = {}
user["name"] = "Ada"
user["role"] = "Author"
user["joined"] = 2026

for key, value in user.items():
    print(f"{key}: {value}")

# Output:
# name: Ada
# role: Author
# joined: 2026

This also means dictionary comprehensions and merges keep a predictable order, which is surprisingly useful when serializing to JSON or building config objects:

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defaults = {"host": "localhost", "port": 8080}
overrides = {"port": 9090, "debug": True}

# Merge with the | operator (Python 3.9+)
config = defaults | overrides
print(config)
# {'host': 'localhost', 'port': 9090, 'debug': True}

One caveat: ordering is a property of the dictionary, not of equality. Two dicts with the same keys and values are considered equal even if their insertion order differs. 🐍

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List open or listening ports

Posted on March 29, 2019 by ronaldpringadi

MacOS

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lsof -nP -i4TCP

RedHat/Centos7

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netstat -tulpn
Posted in Bash, Operating System | Leave a comment

MongoDB Notes

Posted on March 29, 2019 by ronaldpringadi

When using MongoDB to store files, we have 2 collections:
1. The place where MongoDB store the file metadata: store.files
2. Ans place where MongoDB store the file content: store.chunks

Depending on the size of the file, one entry in store.files can points to many entries in store.chunks. The bigger the file, the more entry you’ll encounter.

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// Show all/ list all entries from store.files
db.getCollection('store.files').find({});

// Show only a particular entry from store.files
db.getCollection('store.files').find({ _id : ObjectId("5b02d232cbce1d07e08401c7")});

// The same can be used for store chunks.
db.getCollection('store.chunks').find({});

The metadata/fields in the store.files can be expanded during query runtime (not saved into the MongoDB, only displayed during runtime)

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db.getCollection('store.files').aggregate([
    { $match: { _id : ObjectId("5b02d232cbce1d07e08401c7")} },
    { $addFields:{'key_reference':'1234'}}
]);

Or we do an update into store.files which will be saved into the MongoDB

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db.getCollection('store.files').updateMany({ _id : ObjectId("5b02d232cbce1d07e08401c7")},{$set:{'key_reference':'1234'}});
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

CentOS 6 repo Settings

Posted on March 2, 2018 by ronaldpringadi

To fix repo settings in CentOS 6

1. make sure there is no proxy or funny settings in
vi /etc/yum.conf

2. There are a couple of files within /etc/yum.repos.d/. Make sure the url are correct (accessible) and enabled=1
ll /etc/yum.repos.d/

3. Cleanup the repo, list and retest
yum –enablerepo=base clean metadata;
yum repolist all
yum search java-1.8.0-openjdk

Posted in Linux | Leave a comment

Show Linux Partition Tree Mountpoint and If SSD

Posted on June 27, 2017 by ronaldpringadi
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lsblk -o TYPE,NAME,KNAME,UUID,MOUNTPOINT,SIZE,ROTA
Posted in Linux | Leave a comment

Setting log4j log level programmatically

Posted on June 8, 2017 by ronaldpringadi
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private static void setupLog4j() {
        System.out.println("setupLog4j");
        BasicConfigurator.resetConfiguration();
        // Start clean.
        Logger.getRootLogger().removeAllAppenders();
        // Create appender
        ConsoleAppender console = new ConsoleAppender();
        // Configure the appender
        String PATTERN = "%d --[ %p ] %l: %m%n";
        console.setLayout(new PatternLayout(PATTERN));
        console.activateOptions();
        console.setName("stdout");
        Logger.getRootLogger().setLevel(Level.DEBUG);
        BasicConfigurator.configure(console);
        LOG = Logger.getLogger(MinerTest.class);
}
Posted in java | Leave a comment

Print java stack trace from anywhere

Posted on May 26, 2017 by ronaldpringadi

Need to know which code call a specific location?
Dump the stack trace:

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LOG.trace(ExceptionUtils.getStackTrace(new Throwable()));
Posted in java | Leave a comment