- Introduction
- Basic Controllers
- Controller Middleware
- RESTful Resource Controllers
- Dependency Injection & Controllers
Instead of defining all of your request handling logic in a single routes.php
file, you may wish to organize this behavior using Controller classes. Controllers can group related HTTP request handling logic into a class. Controllers are typically stored in the app/Http/Controllers
directory.
Here is an example of a basic controller class:
<?php namespace App\Http\Controllers;
use App\Http\Controllers\Controller;
class UserController extends Controller {
/**
* Show the profile for the given user.
*
* @param int $id
* @return Response
*/
public function showProfile($id)
{
return view('user.profile', ['user' => User::findOrFail($id)]);
}
}
We can route to the controller action like so:
Route::get('user/{id}', 'UserController@showProfile');
Note: All controllers should extend the base controller class.
It is very important to note that we did not need to specify the full controller namespace, only the portion of the class name that comes after the App\Http\Controllers
namespace "root". By default, the RouteServiceProvider
will load the routes.php
file within a route group containing the root controller namespace.
If you choose to nest or organize your controllers using PHP namespaces deeper into the App\Http\Controllers
directory, simply use the specify the class name relative to the App\Http\Controllers
root namespace. So, if your full controller class is App\Http\Controllers\Photos\AdminController
, you would register a route like so:
Route::get('foo', 'Photos\AdminController@method');
Like Closure routes, you may specify names on controller routes:
Route::get('foo', ['uses' => 'FooController@method', 'as' => 'name']);
To generate a URL to a controller action, use the action
helper method:
$url = action('App\Http\Controllers\FooController@method');
If you wish to generate a URL to a controller action while using only the portion of the class name relative to your controller namespace, register the root controller namespace with the URL generator:
URL::setRootControllerNamespace('App\Http\Controllers');
$url = action('FooController@method');
You may access the name of the controller action being run using the currentRouteAction
method:
$action = Route::currentRouteAction();
Middleware may be specified on controller routes like so:
Route::get('profile', [
'middleware' => 'auth',
'uses' => 'UserController@showProfile'
]);
Additionally, you may specify middleware within your controller's constructor:
class UserController extends Controller {
/**
* Instantiate a new UserController instance.
*/
public function __construct()
{
$this->middleware('auth');
$this->middleware('log', ['only' => ['fooAction', 'barAction']]);
$this->middleware('subscribed', ['except' => ['fooAction', 'barAction']]);
}
}
Resource controllers make it painless to build RESTful controllers around resources. For example, you may wish to create a controller that handles HTTP requests regarding "photos" stored by your application. Using the make:controller
Artisan command, we can quickly create such a controller:
php artisan make:controller PhotoController
Next, we register a resourceful route to the controller:
Route::resource('photo', 'PhotoController');
This single route declaration creates multiple routes to handle a variety of RESTful actions on the photo resource. Likewise, the generated controller will already have methods stubbed for each of these actions, including notes informing you which URIs and verbs they handle.
Verb | Path | Action | Route Name |
---|---|---|---|
GET | /resource | index | resource.index |
GET | /resource/create | create | resource.create |
POST | /resource | store | resource.store |
GET | /resource/{resource} | show | resource.show |
GET | /resource/{resource}/edit | edit | resource.edit |
PUT/PATCH | /resource/{resource} | update | resource.update |
DELETE | /resource/{resource} | destroy | resource.destroy |
Additionally, you may specify only a subset of actions to handle on the route:
Route::resource('photo', 'PhotoController',
['only' => ['index', 'show']]);
Route::resource('photo', 'PhotoController',
['except' => ['create', 'store', 'update', 'destroy']]);
By default, all resource controller actions have a route name; however, you can override these names by passing a names
array with your options:
Route::resource('photo', 'PhotoController',
['names' => ['create' => 'photo.build']]);
To "nest" resource controllers, use "dot" notation in your route declaration:
Route::resource('photos.comments', 'PhotoCommentController');
This route will register a "nested" resource that may be accessed with URLs like the following: photos/{photos}/comments/{comments}
.
class PhotoCommentController extends Controller {
/**
* Show the specified photo comment.
*
* @param int $photoId
* @param int $commentId
* @return Response
*/
public function show($photoId, $commentId)
{
//
}
}
If it becomes necessary to add additional routes to a resource controller beyond the default resource routes, you should define those routes before your call to Route::resource
:
Route::get('photos/popular');
Route::resource('photos', 'PhotoController');
The Laravel service container is used to resolve all Laravel controllers. As a result, you are able to type-hint any dependencies your controller may need in its constructor:
<?php namespace App\Http\Controllers;
use Illuminate\Routing\Controller;
use App\Repositories\UserRepository;
class UserController extends Controller {
/**
* The user repository instance.
*/
protected $users;
/**
* Create a new controller instance.
*
* @param UserRepository $users
* @return void
*/
public function __construct(UserRepository $users)
{
$this->users = $users;
}
}
Of course, you may also type-hint any Laravel contract. If the container can resolve it, you can type-hint it.
In addition to constructor injection, you may also type-hint dependencies on your controller's methods. For example, let's type-hint the Request
instance on one of our methods:
<?php namespace App\Http\Controllers;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use Illuminate\Routing\Controller;
class UserController extends Controller {
/**
* Store a new user.
*
* @param Request $request
* @return Response
*/
public function store(Request $request)
{
$name = $request->input('name');
//
}
}
If your controller method is also expecting input from a route parameter, simply list your route arguments after your other dependencies:
<?php namespace App\Http\Controllers;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use Illuminate\Routing\Controller;
class UserController extends Controller {
/**
* Store a new user.
*
* @param Request $request
* @param int $id
* @return Response
*/
public function update(Request $request, $id)
{
//
}
}
Note: Method injection is fully compatible with model binding. The container will intelligently determine which arguments are model bound and which arguments should be injected.