Last updated on February 17, 2018
This tutorial provides an example of building a complete RESTful API using Laravel 5.5.* Framework. You gonna use the different HTTP methods during the REST API development, quick introduction about each method.
GET to retrieve data
POST to add data
PUT to update data
DELETE to delete data
Each method as a purpose isn’t it?. Let’s download and install Laravel 5.5.* Framework as the first step. Before installing, Just want to give a quick introduction to the app which you are going to build is TODO application. You can search for todos, add a todo to list, update and delete todos. Exciting right, let’s start your journey-
STEP – 1 (Download and install Laravel 5.5.* Framework)
You can setup project with latest version by issue following command from your terminal.
$ composer create-project laravel/laravel todo --prefer-dist
If you want to setup project with a specific version, issue following command from your terminal.
$ composer create-project laravel/laravel todo 5.5 --prefer-dist
Here, “todo” is project name, above command create a directory with project name and downloads all files inside it. Now move control to your project directory(todo) by issuing below command and serve application by using artisan command.
$ cd todo $ php artisan serve
It will show http://localhost:8000/ URL if it is up successfully.
That’s about installation and congratulation, you have finished step one successfully. Let’s create make database configurations.
Configure Your Database
Create a database and edit .env and fill it with your database settings. This article assumes a MySQL database.
DB_CONNECTION=mysql DB_HOST=127.0.0.1 DB_PORT=3306 DB_DATABASE=your_database_name DB_USERNAME=your_username DB_PASSWORD=your_password
Create Migration File
Below command set up the basic migration scripts that we’ll be using to create the database table.
php artisan make:migration create_tasks_table --create=tasks
Now required migration file is in place, so let’s add a table column as shown below.
Edit app/database/migrations/SOME_DATE_create_tasks_table.php and edit and update the up() and down() methods:
public function up() {
Schema::create('tasks', function (Blueprint $table) {
$table->increments('id');
$table->string('name');
$table->text('description');
$table->integer('user_id');
$table->timestamps();
});
}
public function down() {
Schema::dropIfExists('tasks');
}
Add Sample Users and todos
We gonna use Laravel’s seeds to create a few sample users and todos.
Let issue following commands to create seeder class from your root of the project.
php artisan make:seeder UsersTableSeeder php artisan make:seeder TasksTableSeeder
Generated seeders by the above commands will be placed in the database/seeders directory. In our case, we have two seed files called UsersTableSeeder.php and TasksTableSeeder.php.
Update seeder run methods as shown below
UsersTableSeeder.php
public function run()
{
factory(App\User::class, 50)->create();
}
TasksTableSeeder.php
public function run()
{
factory(App\Task::class, 50)->create();
}
Next, make sure that seeder class gets run when the database is seeded. Edit app/database/seeds/DatabaseSeeder.php
public function run()
{
$this->call(UsersTableSeeder::class);
$this->call(TasksTableSeeder::class);
}
Add Model Factories
Next, create app/database/factories/UserFactory.php and app/database/factories/TaskFactory.php and place below code blocks
define(App\User::class, function (Faker $faker) {
static $password;
return [
'name' => $faker->name,
'email' => $faker->unique()->safeEmail,
'password' => $password ?: $password = bcrypt('secret'),
'remember_token' => str_random(10),
];
});
define(App\Task::class, function (Faker $faker) {
$users = App\User::pluck('id')->toArray();
return [
'name' => $faker->unique()->name,
'description' => $faker->text,
'user_id' => $faker->randomElement($users)
];
});
Create Task Model
Laravel comes with a User model setup, so let’s create a model for our tasks table.
Create a modal with
$ php artisan make:model Task
since you are following Laravel naming conventions you don’t have to change anything in the task model.
Run the Migrations
Below are the Laravel’s artisan commands and issue below commands from your project root. These commands will create those tables and inset sample users and tasks to the database.
// Create the tables for migrations $ php artisan migrate // Create the sample users and tasks $ php artisan db:seed
api-response
When building an API it is common for people to just grab stuff from the database and pass it to json_encode(). This might be passable for “trivial” APIs but if they are in use by the public, or used by mobile applications then this will quickly lead to inconsistent output. So to avoid this problems we gonna use ellipsesynergie/api-response package. This package handles the response properly in your API and this package uses Fractal.
Fractal – Fractal provides a presentation and transformation layer for complex data output, the like found in RESTful APIs, and works really well with JSON. Think of this as a view layer for your JSON/YAML/etc.
Install package with the composer, issue the command from your root of the project:
composer require ellipsesynergie/api-response
Add this following service provider to your config/app.php file.
EllipseSynergie\ApiResponse\Laravel\ResponseServiceProvider::class
Create Task Controller
$ php artisan make:controller TaskController
Now define your api routes in routes/api.php
// get list of tasks
Route::get('tasks','TaskController@index');
// get specific task
Route::get('task/{id}','TaskController@show');
// delete a task
Route::delete('task/{id}','TaskController@destroy');
// update existing task
Route::put('task','TaskController@store');
// create new task
Route::post('task','TaskController@store');
Lets update task controller with below code, please read comments for better understanding.
response = $response;
}
public function index()
{
//Get all task
$tasks = Task::paginate(15);
// Return a collection of $task with pagination
return $this->response->withPaginator($tasks, new TaskTransformer());
}
public function show($id)
{
//Get the task
$task = Task::find($id);
if (!$task) {
return $this->response->errorNotFound('Task Not Found');
}
// Return a single task
return $this->response->withItem($task, new TaskTransformer());
}
public function destroy($id)
{
//Get the task
$task = Task::find($id);
if (!$task) {
return $this->response->errorNotFound('Task Not Found');
}
if($task->delete()) {
return $this->response->withItem($task, new TaskTransformer());
} else {
return $this->response->errorInternalError('Could not delete a task');
}
}
public function store(Request $request) {
if ($request->isMethod('put')) {
//Get the task
$task = Task::find($request->task_id);
if (!$task) {
return $this->response->errorNotFound('Task Not Found');
}
} else {
$task = new Task;
}
$task->id = $request->input('task_id');
$task->name = $request->input('name');
$task->description = $request->input('description');
$task->user_id = 1; //$request->user()->id;
if($task->save()) {
return $this->response->withItem($task, new TaskTransformer());
} else {
return $this->response->errorInternalError('Could not updated/created a task');
}
}
}
Create a Transformer folder in your app directory and create a file called app\Transformer\TaskTransformer.php with below code
$task->id,
'task' => $task->name,
'task_description' => $task->description
];
}
}
That’s it.Rest APIs are ready now you can access the APIs with below-shown endpoints using advance reset client or Curl.
Start the server with php artisan serve or use other other methods.
URL HTTP Method Operation /api/task GET Returns an array of tasks /api/task/:id GET Returns the task with id of :id /api/task POST Adds a new task and return it. /api/task/:id PUT Updates the task with id of :id /api/task/:id DELETE Deletes the task with id of :id
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