What is Date and datetime casts in Laravel, and what role does it play in a real application?

What is Date and datetime casts in Laravel, and what role does it play in a real application? In Laravel, date and datetime casts should be understood as part of a larger application architecture rather than as an isolated API call. Date-related casts turn persisted date values into convenient date objects supported by the framework. A strong understanding includes its purpose, the layer where it belongs, the data or request flow it affects, and the situations where another mechanism may be more appropriate. Practical context: Eloquent attribute casting converts selected model attributes into useful PHP types or structures when models are read and written. The specific focus here is date and datetime casts: Date-related casts turn persisted date values into convenient date objects supported by the framework. This question is designed to test not only terminology, but also how the concept fits into Laravel's request, application, database, security, or deployment workflow.