Basic Laravel Restful API

• This application serves to demonstrate the basics of Laravel Restful Api in 10 minutes by creating a todo app

Step 1 : Create The Todo Model

• The artisan command below creates a model of the name Todo alongside a migration for the database schema

php artisan make:model Todo -m

• To solve the Mass Assignment Error
• Add the following field at the top of your Todo model

protected $guarded = [];

Step 2 : Create the controllers

• The artisan command below crerats a controller of the name TodosController and binds it to the Todo model
• The --api parameter adds the methods that a generally used in an api to the created controller

php artisan make:controller TodosController --model=Todo --api 

• Creates the User Controller

php artisan make:controller UsersController  --model=User --api

Step 4 : Create the migration for the Todo model

• Navigate to the created migration and add the following code to the up() method

$table->increments('id');
$table->string('task');
$table->boolean('completed')->default('0');
$table->integer('user_id')->nullable();
$table->timestamps();

• Take note that the users migration has been created for your already
• To create your tables, execute the following artisan command to run the migrations

php artisan migrate

Step 5 : Define your relationships

• go to the Todo model and define the relationship that deals with the owner of the task
• we have a one to many relation: one Todo belongs to one User; One user has many Todos
• The code below creates an owner relation in the Todo class

public function owner()
{
    return $this->belongsTo(User::class, 'user_id');
}

• The code below links a user to his Todos

public function todos()
{
    return $this->hasMany(Todo::class);
}

Step 6 : Define Model factories

• paste the following code into the TodoFactory created earlier

$users = \App\User::all()->random(1)->pluck('id')->values();

return [
    'task' => $faker->sentence,
    'completed' => $faker->boolean(),
    'user_id' => $users[0]
];

• Take note the UserFactory already comes predefined for you and ready to use, so no need to create it
• It can be seen under the database/factories directory

Step 7 : Seeding your database

• Laravel comes with many different approaches to seed your database,
  • ranging from laravel tinker,
  • or using the artisan command below

    php artisan db:seed

• We will use tinker - is a command line interface tool for manipulating the database
• The below artisan command opens the tinker CLI

php artisan tinker

• Within the tinker environment
• Seed the user table with as many rows of data as you want in this case 20 users

factory(App\User::class, 20)->create()

• Seed the todo table with 40 rows of data

factory(App\Todo::class, 40)->create()

Step 8 : Api Routes

• Add the following code to your API routes

Route::resource('todos', 'TodosController');
Route::resource('users', 'UsersController');

Step 9 : controller implementation

TodosController

• Add the following code to your index method in the TodosController

return response()->json(Todo::all());

• Add the following code to your show method in the TodosController

return response()->json($todo->with('owner')->get()->where('id', '=', $todo->id));

• Add the following code into your store method

$todo = Todo::create([
    'task' => $request->task,
    'completed' => $request->completed ? $request->completed : 0,
    'user_id' => User::all()->random(1)->pluck('id')[0]
]);

return response()->json(['message' => 'Todo successfully created']);

• Add the following code into your destroy method

$todo->delete();

return response()->json(['message' => "Todo with id {$todo->id} has been successfully deleted"]);

• Add the following code to the update method

if ($request->task)
    $todo->task = $request->task;
if ($request->completed)
    $todo->completed = $request->completed;

$todo->save();

return response()->json($todo);

UsersController

• Add the following code to your index method in the UsersController

return response()->json(User::all()->first()->with('todos')->get());

• Add the following code to your show method in the UsersController

return response()->json($user->with('todos')->get()->where('id', '=', $user->id));

• Add the following code into your store method

$todo = User::create([
    'name' => $request->name,
    'email' => $request->email,
    'password' => bcrypt('secret')
]);

return response()->json(['message' => 'User successfully created']);

• Add the following code to your destroy method

$user->delete();

return response()->json(['message' => "User with id {$user->id} has been successfully deleted"]);

• Add the following code to the update method

if ($request->name)
    $user->name = $request->name;
if ($request->email)
    $user->email = $request->email;

$user->save();

return response()->json($user);

Step 10 restful API Testing Using Postman

• HTTP Methods that correspond to methods in your controllers delete, put, post and get

• get - http://{-your domain-}/api/todos

• get - http://{-your domain-}/api/todos/1

• post - http://{-your domain-}/api/todos - pass it some body data -> json format

task: Upload app to github

• delete - http://{-your domain-}/api/todos/1
• put - http://{-your domain-}/api/todos/1 - pass it some body data -> ensure that you use the x-www-form-urlencoded data

task: Test this api
completed: 1

• get - http://{-your domain-}/api/users
• get - http://{-your domain-}/api/users/1
• post - http://{-your domain-}/api/todos - pass it some body data -> json format

name: Laravel Namibia
email: [email protected]

• delete - http://{-your domain-}/api/users/1
• put - http://{-your domain-}/api/todos/1 - pass it some body data -> ensure that you use the x-www-form-urlencoded data

name: Laravel SA
email: [email protected]