---
title: "Random cases & factories — Enums for Laravel | Roundly"
description: "random() picks a random case for model factories, seeders and demo data; collect() walks every case."
url: https://roundly-consulting.com/open-source/docs/enums-for-laravel/random-cases
language: en
---

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# Random cases & factories

random() returns a random case — handy for factories, seeders and tests:

```php
NewsCategory::random(); // a random NewsCategory case
```

## In a model factory

```php
namespace Database\Factories;

use App\Enums\NewsCategory;
use App\Models\Article;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Factories\Factory;

/**
 * @extends Factory<Article>
 */
final class ArticleFactory extends Factory
{
    /**
     * @return array<string, mixed>
     */
    public function definition(): array
    {
        return [
            'title' => fake()->sentence(),
            'category' => NewsCategory::random(),
        ];
    }
}
```

## One batch per case

collect() returns every case as a Collection, so seeding a batch per case is a one-liner:

```php
namespace Database\Seeders;

use App\Enums\NewsCategory;
use App\Models\Article;
use Illuminate\Database\Seeder;

final class ArticleSeeder extends Seeder
{
    public function run(): void
    {
        NewsCategory::collect()->each(
            fn (NewsCategory $category) => Article::factory()->count(10)->create(['category' => $category]),
        );
    }
}
```

random() uses PHP’s array\_rand(), which isn’t cryptographically secure — use it for fixtures and demo content, never for anything security-sensitive. On an enum that declares no cases it throws EnumException::noCases() instead of PHP’s ValueError, so it’s caught along with the package’s other errors.

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