You might ask: What is Laravel (and Laravel 4)? In short, it is the PHP frameworks for web artisans. This contains notes for beginners.
- We can generate tables for application by utilizing the migration feature with artisan. For example, in order to setup a user table, we use parameters –table and –create:[bash]php artisan migrate:install
php artisan migrate:make create_users_table –table=users –create[/bash]. We can find the php file artisan has created under /app/database/migrations, and can adjust this file to generate needed fields. We can then tell artisan to create users table:
[bash]php artisan migrate[/bash]
- To insert default item, we create a seeder class in /app/database/seeds/UserTableSeeder.php, and then declare a call to UserTableSeeder in the DatabaseSeeder:[bash]$this->call(‘UserTableSeeder’);[/bash]
. Finally, we do this db insertion by using artisan:
[bash]php artisan db:seed[/bash]
- In router, we can use Route::get and Route::post to accept get/post data (e.g.[php]Route::post(‘login’, ‘AuthController@postLogin’);[/php]
), and when defining actions in controller, we shoud use the prefix post and get so that they can be handled automatically if we use Route::controller.
- Laravel provides a Validator we can use to specify some rules to check. If the validator fails, we can pass the $validator directly to our view to show the error message. Depending on the result of validation and authentication we redirect to the according page with success- or error-messages. The withInput function allows us to pass the last inputs (except password) to the new form. E.g.[php]return Redirect::to(‘login’)->withErrors($validator)->withInput(Input::except(‘password’));[/php]
- When using some Laravel built-in features, we might face the error[bash]mcrypt_encrypt(): Size of key is too large for this algorithm[/bash]
. This is caused by the key inputted manually is too long. It is recommended to use
[bash]php artisan key:generate[/bash]
to generate the application key.
- In order to add a new bundle to the current project, we need to add it to the requires section of the composer.json file (e.g.[bash]"require": {
"laravel/framework": "4.0.*",
"michelf/php-markdown": "1.3"
},[/bash], and then update the project with composer:
[bash]composer update[/bash]
- It is suggested to prepare needed migration and seeding scripts so that when deploying to production, we just need to do artisan migrate and artisan db:seed.
- In order to order by multiple columns, use multiple orderBy:[php]Page::orderBy(‘field_1’, ‘DESC’)->orderBy(‘field_2’, ‘DESC’)->paginate(20)[/php]
- For pagination, do not do query manually. Instead, should use Laravel built-in pagination control which is compatible with twitter-bootstrap.
- In order to pass a data from database to blade Form::select element, we should use lists method with the according model. E.g.[php]
//– In the controller
public function getIndex()
{
return View::make(‘users/index’)
->with(‘other_users’, Country::where(‘id’,'<>’,1)->where(‘id’,'<>’,10)->lists(‘name’,’id’));
}{{– In the blade view –}}
{{ Form::select(‘id_country’,
array(
‘Popular’ => array(
‘0’ => ‘All users’,
‘1’ => ‘User 1′,
’10’ => ‘User 10’
),
‘Other users’ => $other_users
),
”,
array(‘style’ => ‘width:100%;’)
) }}
[/php] - In order to set active element based on the page URI (for example, active menu for a specific controller), use Request:is method:[html]<li{{ Request::is( ‘pages*’) ? ‘ class="active"’ : ” }}>[/html]
- In order to create good-looking form with Twitter Bootstrap, use https://bootsnipp.com/forms
- When do create a new model from user data, remember to set $fillable information so that these fields can be used for mass data filling:[php]class Campaign extends Eloquent {
protected $fillable = array(‘name’, ‘country’);
}[/php] - When a form validation fails, remember to forward old input to the form so that user-inputted data is not lost. For example:[php]
//– In controller
return Redirect::to(‘login’)->withErrors($validator)->withInput(Input::except(‘password’));//– In blade template
{{ Form::text(‘username’, Input::old(‘username’)) }}
[/php]
