Laravel Tutorial

Laravel is an open-source PHP web application framework that has gained immense popularity since its inception in 2011, created by Taylor Otwell. This renowned framework empowers developers to build robust, scalable web applications with remarkable ease. As a developer-friendly framework, Laravel offers powerful features and follows the Model-View-Controller (MVC) architectural pattern, making it a preferred choice for modern web development.

Laravel tutorial provides basic and advanced concepts. Our Laravel tutorial is designed for beginners and professionals.

Laravel offers the rich set of functionalities that incorporates the basic features of PHP frameworks such as Codelgniter, Yii, and other programming languages like Ruby on Rails.

What is Laravel?

Laravel is a PHP web application framework that uses the Model-View-Controller (MVC) architectural pattern. It is open-source and provides efficient ways to build web applications with its expressive syntax and comprehensive feature set.

• Framework: It is the collection of methods, classes, or files that the programmer uses, and they can also extend its functionality by using their code.
• Architecture: It is the specific design pattern that the framework follows. Laravel is following the MVC architecture.

MVC is divided into three letters shown below:

• M: 'M' stands for Model. A model is a class that deals with a database. For example, if we have users in an application then we will have users model that deals with a database to query the table of users if we have users model, then we will also have a users table. We conclude from the example that the model is going to have a table for that specific model.
• V: 'V' stands for View. A view is a class that deals with an HTML. Everything that we can see on the application in the browser is the view or the representation.
• C: 'C' stands for Controller. A controller is the middle-man that deals with both model and view. A controller is the class that retrieves the data from the model and sends the data to the view class.

Key Features of Laravel

Let us now have a reality check on how good Laravel is as a web application framework based on a few key points:

• Language Support: PHP Version >= 5.5.9
• MVC Framework: Yes, from Laravel 2 onwards.
• Object Relational Mapping: Yes, through Eloquent ORM for database interaction.
• Testing: Unit testing with PHPUnit is built-in to prevent regressions.
• Database Migration: Simplifies the deployment and updating of applications.
• Security: Uses SSH (Secure Shell) for executing CLI commands securely.
• Caching: Built-in caching support to optimize performance.
• Form Validation: Robust form validation methods are integrated.
• Scaffolding: Allows specification of application database usage.
• Rapid Application Development: Facilitates quick development cycles.
• Mobility: No direct support for mobile app development.

Core Concepts of Laravel

Now that your development environment is ready, let’s delve into the fundamental building blocks of Laravel applications:

• Routing: Define routes that map incoming URLs to corresponding controller actions within the routes directory. These routes dictate how your application responds to user requests.
• Controllers: Controllers handle incoming requests, process data, interact with the model layer, and ultimately determine the application’s response. Controllers reside within the app/Http/Controllers directory.
• Models: Models represent your application’s data and business logic. They interact with the database using Eloquent and encapsulate data access logic. Models are typically defined within the app/Models directory.
• Views: Views are responsible for crafting the user interface. Laravel utilizes Blade templating engine, which offers a clean syntax for embedding PHP code within HTML templates. Views reside within the resources/views directory.

Advantages of Laravel

Following are some advantages of Laravel:

1 - Creating authorization and authentication systems

Every owner of the web application makes sure that unauthorized users do not access secured or paid resources. It provides a simple way of implementing authentication. It also provides a simple way of organizing the authorization logic and control access to resources.

2 - Integration with tools

Laravel is integrated with many tools that build a faster app. It is not only necessary to build the app but also to create a faster app. Integration with the caching back end is one of the major steps to improve the performance of a web app. Laravel is integrated with some popular cache back ends such as Redis, and Memcached.

3 - Mail service integration

Laravel is integrated with the Mail Service. This service is used to send notifications to the user's emails. It provides a clean and simple API that allows you to send the email quickly through a local or cloud-based service of your choice.

4 - Handling exception and configuration error

Handling exception and configuration errors are the major factors on the app's usability. The manners in which the software app handles the errors have a huge impact on the user's satisfaction and the app's usability. The organization does not want to lose their customers, so for them, Laravel is the best choice. In Laravel, error and exception handling is configured in the new Laravel project.

5 - Automation testing work

Testing a product is very important to make sure that the software runs without any errors, bugs, and crashes. We know that automation testing is less time-consuming than manual testing, so automation testing is preferred over the manual testing. Laravel is developed with testing in mind.

6 - Separation of business logic code from presentation code

The separation between business logic code and presentation code allows the HTML layout designers to change the look without interacting with the developers. A bug can be resolved by the developers faster if the separation is provided between the business logic code and presentation code. We know that Laravel follows the MVC architecture, so separation is already done.

7 - Fixing most common technical vulnerabilities

The security vulnerability is the most important example in web application development. An American organization, i.e., OWASP Foundation, defines the most important security vulnerabilities such as SQL injection, cross-site request forgery, cross-site scripting, etc. Developers need to consider these vulnerabilities and fix them before delivery. Laravel is a secure framework as it protects the web application against all the security vulnerabilities.

8 - Scheduling tasks configuration and management

The web app requires some task scheduling mechanism to perform the tasks in time for example, when to send out the emails to the subscribers or when to clean up the database tables at the end of the day. To schedule the tasks, developers need first to create the Cron entry for each task, but Laravel command scheduler defines a command schedule which requires a single entry on the server.

Advanced Concepts

As you gain proficiency, explore Laravel’s more advanced features to craft even more robust and feature-rich web applications:

• Authentication & Authorization: Implement secure user authentication and role-based access control.
• Form Validation: Ensure data integrity and provide informative error messages with robust validation features.
• Database Seeding & Migrations: Manage your database schema and populate it with sample data for testing.
• Event System: Coordinate complex logic and decouple components using the elegant event system.
• Job Queuing: Handle long-running tasks efficiently to improve application responsiveness.
• APIs: Build RESTful APIs to create web services for mobile apps, frontend frameworks, and external systems.
• Testing: Write comprehensive tests to ensure code quality and maintainability.