In this tutorial i will show you some laravel best practices. I think every laravel developer should know how to write clean code and shouldn't write unnecessary code. In this lessen we will see some tips and tricks in laravel to write better code to help and optimize our app to get better performance.
Let's see some best practices and some tips and tricks which we can add our laravel application and can optimize website perfomance. In his tutorial we will see best coding practice, best eloquent practice, best controller practice and many things.
Tip 1. Invokable Controllers
From Laravel 5.6.28 - if you want to create a controller with just one action, you can use __invoke() method and even create "invokable" controller
namespace App\Http\Controllers;
use App\User;
use App\Http\Controllers\Controller;
class ShowProfile extends Controller
{
public function __invoke($id)
{
return view('user.profile', ['user' => User::findOrFail($id)]);
}
}
Routes:
Route::get('user/{id}', 'ShowProfile');
Artisan command to generate this controller
php artisan make:controller ShowProfile --invokable
Tip 2. Unsigned Integer
For foreign key migrations instead of integer() use unsignedInteger() type or integer()->unsigned() , otherwise you may get SQL errors.
Schema::create('employees', function (Blueprint $table) {
$table-> unsignedInteger ('company_id'); //if primary id Increments
$table-> unsignedBigInteger ('company_id'); //if primary id BigIncrements
$table->foreign('company_id')->references('id')->on('companies');
});
Tip 3. OrderBy on Eloquent relationships
You can specify orderBy() directly on your Eloquent relationships.
public function products()
{
return $this->hasMany(Product::class);
}
public function productsByName()
{
return $this->hasMany(Product::class)->orderBy('name');
}
Tip 4 : Raw DB Queries
You can use RAW DB queries in various places, including havingRaw() function after groupBy() .
Product::groupBy('category_id')->havingRaw('COUNT(*) > 1')->get();
Tip 5 . $loop variable in foreach
Inside of foreach loop, check if current entry is first/last by just using $loop variable.
@foreach ($users as $user)
@if ($loop->first)
This is the first iteration.
@endif
@if ($loop->last)
This is the last iteration.
@endif
This is user {{ $user->id }}
@endforeach
There are also other properties like $loop->iteration or $loop->count .
Tip 6. Eloquent where date methods
In Eloquent, check the date with functions whereDay() , whereMonth() , whereYear() , whereDate() and whereTime() .
$products = Product::whereDate('created_at', '2018-01-31')->get();
$products = Product::whereMonth('created_at', '12')->get();
$products = Product::whereDay('created_at', '31')->get();
$products = Product::whereYear('created_at', date('Y'))->get();
$products = Product::whereTime('created_at', '=', '14:13:58')->get();
Tip 7. Route group within a group
in Routes, you can create a group within a group, assigning a certain middleware only to some URLs in the "parent" group.
Route::group(['prefix' => 'account', 'as' => 'account.'], function() {
Route::get('login', 'AccountController@login');
Route::get('register', 'AccountController@register');
Route::group(['middleware' => 'auth'], function() {
Route::get('edit', 'AccountController@edit');
});
});
Tip 8. Increments and decrements
if you want to increment some DB column in some table, just use increment() function. Oh, and you can increment not only by 1, but also by some number, like 50.
Post::find($post_id)->increment('view_count');
User::find($user_id)->increment('points', 50);
Tip 9. Does view file exist?
You can check if View file exists before actually loading it.
if (view()->exists('custom.page')) {
// Load the view
}
Tip 10. No timestamp columns
If your DB table doesn't contain timestamp fields created_at and updated_at , you can specify that Eloquent model wouldn't use them, with $timestamps = false property.
class Company extends Model
{
public $timestamps = false;
}
Tip 11. Database migrations column types
There are interesting column types for migrations, here are a few examples.
$table->geometry('positions');
$table->ipAddress('visitor');
$table->macAddress('device');
$table->point('position');
$table->uuid('id');
See all column types: visit here
Tip 12. Soft-deletes: multiple restore
When using soft-deletes, you can restore multiple rows in one sentence
Post::withTrashed()->where('author_id', 1)->restore();
Tip 13. Image validation
While validating uploaded images, you can specify the dimensions you require.
'photo' => 'dimensions:max_width=4096,max_height=4096'
Tip 14 Testing email into laravel.log
If you want to test email contents in your app but unable or unwilling to set up something like Mailgun, use .env parameter MAIL_DRIVER=log and all the email will be saved into storage/logs/laravel.log file, instead of actually being sent.
Read also : User Roles and Permissions Tutorial in Laravel without Packages
Tip 15. Don't create Controllers
If you want route to just show a certain view, don't create a Controller method, just use Route::view() function.
// Instead of this
Route::get('about', 'TextsController@about');
// And this
class TextsController extends Controller
{
public function about()
{
return view('texts.about');
}
}
Do this
// Do this
Route::view('about', 'texts.about');
Tip 16. Blade @auth
Instead of if-statement to check logged in user, use @auth directive
Typical way:
@if(auth()->user())
// The user is authenticated.
@endif
Shorter:
@auth
// The user is authenticated.
@endauth
Tip 17 Model all: columns
When calling Eloquent's Model::all() , you can specify which columns to return.
$users = User::all(['id', 'name', 'email']);
Tip 18. To Fail or not to Fail
In addition to findOrFail() , there's also Eloquent method firstOrFail() which will return 404 page if no records for query are found.
$user = User::where('email','codechief@gmail.com')->firstOrFail();
Tip 19. Use hasMany to create Many
If you have hasMany() relationship, you can use saveMany() to save multiple "child" entries from your "parent" object, all in one sentence.
$post = Post::find(1);
$post->comments()->saveMany([
new Comment(['message' => 'First comment']),
new Comment(['message' => 'Second comment']),
]);
Tip 20. More convenient DD
Read also : Vue Laravel CRUD Example With Vue Router & Sweet Alert
Instead of doing dd($result); you can put ->dd() as a method directly at the end of your Eloquent sentence, or any Collection.
// Instead of
$users = User::where('name', 'Taylor')->get();
dd($users);
// Do this
$users = User::where('name', 'Taylor')->get()->dd();
Tip 21. How to avoid error in {{ $post->user->name }} if user is deleted?
You can assign a default model in belongsTo relationship, to avoid fatal errors when calling it like {{ $post->user->name }} if $post->user doesn't exist.
/**
* Get the author of the post.
*/
public function user()
{
return $this->belongsTo('App\User')->withDefault();
}
Tip 22. Route Model Binding: You can define a key
You can do Route model binding like Route::get('api/users/{user}', function (App\User $user) { … } - but not only by ID field. If you want {user} to be a username
field, put this in the model:
public function getRouteKeyName() {
return 'username';
}
Tip 23. Redirect to Specific Controller Method
You can redirect() not only to URL or specific route, but to a specific Controller's specific method, and even pass the parameters. Use this:
return redirect()->action('SomeController@method',['param' => $value]);
Tip 24. Touch parent updated_at easily
If you are updating a record and want to update the updated_at column of parent relationship (like, you add new post comment and want posts.updated_at to renew), just use $touches = ['post']; property on child model.
class Comment extends Model
{
/**
* All of the relationships to be touched.
*
* @var array
*/
protected $touches = ['post'];
}
Tip 25. Use withCount() to Calculate Child Relationships Records
If you have hasMany() relationship, and you want to calculate “children” entries, don’t write a special query. For example, if you have posts and comments on your User model, write this withCount() :
public function index()
{
$users = User::withCount(['posts', 'comments'])->get();
return view('users', compact('users'));
}
And then, in your Blade file, you will access those number with [ relationship ]_count properties
Tip 26. Blade Directives: IncludeIf, IncludeWhen, IncludeFirst
If you are not sure whether your Blade partial file actually would exist, you may use these condition commands
This will load header only if Blade file exists
@includeIf('partials.header')
This will load header only for user with role_id 1
@includeWhen(auth()->user()->role_id == 1, 'partials.header')
This will try to load adminlte.header, if missing - will load default.header
@includeFirst('adminlte.header', 'default.header')
Hope this laravel tips and trcks tutorial will be helpful for you.
#laravel #tips-and-tricks