Customize the nature of the restored and deleted values of a Laravel soft-delete field.

CustomSoftDeletes.php

<?php

namespace App\Overrides\Illuminate\Database\Eloquent;

use Carbon\Carbon;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Concerns\HasEvents;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\SoftDeletes as BaseSoftDeletes;

/**
 * Trait SoftDeletes
 * All methods overridden here are to allow for custom deleted and restored values
 *
 * @package App\Overrides\Illuminate\Database\Eloquent
 * @mixin HasEvents
 * @mixin Model
 */
trait SoftDeletes
{
    use BaseSoftDeletes;

    /**
     * Initialize the soft deleting trait for an instance.
     *
     * @return void
     */
    public function initializeSoftDeletes()
    {
        if ($this->getDeletedType() == 'date') {
            $this->dates[] = $this->getDeletedAtColumn();
        }
    }

    /**
     * Perform the actual delete query on this model instance.
     *
     * @return void
     */
    protected function runSoftDelete()
    {
        $query = $this->setKeysForSaveQuery($this->newModelQuery());
        $time = $this->freshTimestamp();
        $deletedValue = $this->getDeletedValue($time);
        $deletedType = $this->getDeletedType();
        $columnAssignment = $deletedType == 'date' ? $this->fromDateTime($deletedValue) : $deletedValue;
        $columns = [$this->getDeletedAtColumn() => $columnAssignment];
        $this->{$this->getDeletedAtColumn()} = $deletedValue;

        if ($this->timestamps && !is_null($this->getUpdatedAtColumn())) {
            $this->{$this->getUpdatedAtColumn()} = $time;
            $columns[$this->getUpdatedAtColumn()] = $this->fromDateTime($time);
        }

        $query->update($columns);
        $this->syncOriginalAttributes(array_keys($columns));
    }

    /**
     * Restore a soft-deleted model instance.
     *
     * @return bool|null
     */
    public function restore()
    {
        if ($this->fireModelEvent('restoring') === false) {
            return false;
        }

        $this->{$this->getDeletedAtColumn()} = $this->getRestoredValue();
        $this->exists = true;
        $result = $this->save();
        $this->fireModelEvent('restored', false);

        return $result;
    }

    /**
     * Determine if the model instance has been soft-deleted.
     *
     * @return bool
     */
    public function trashed()
    {
        return $this->{$this->getDeletedAtColumn()} !== $this->getRestoredValue();
    }

    /**
     * @return string
     */
    public function getDeletedType()
    {
        $deletedValue = $this->getDeletedValue();
        $defaultType = $deletedValue instanceof Carbon ? 'date' : gettype($deletedValue);

        return defined('static::DELETED_TYPE') ? static::DELETED_TYPE : $defaultType;
    }

    /**
     * @return mixed|null
     */
    public function getRestoredValue()
    {
        return defined('static::RESTORED_VALUE') ? static::RESTORED_VALUE : null;
    }

    /**
     * @param Carbon|null $time
     * @return mixed|Carbon|null
     */
    public function getDeletedValue(Carbon $time = null)
    {
        $time = $time ?: $this->freshTimestamp();
        $defaultValue = $this->getDeletedType() == 'date' ? $time : null;

        return defined('static::DELETED_VALUE') ? static::DELETED_VALUE : $defaultValue;
    }
}