Frequently Asked Questions About Laravel Ecosystem

In an effort to make Laravel more accessible and easily navigable for the dev community, we decided to put our heads together and create a standing rubric answering some of the most frequently searched questions regarding Laravel and the Laravel ecosystem. So, let's see what our first batch of FAQs holds!?

What is a Namespace in Laravel? (PHP)

In PHP, a namespace is a way to group related classes, functions, and constants under a single identifier. Namespaces are used to avoid naming conflicts between different classes, functions, and constants and make organizing and managing your code easier. Just as a file with the same name can exist in two separate folders, a class of a specific name can be defined in two namespaces.

The use of namespaces becomes crucial as the project grows. Giving a unique name to each class or function may become tedious and not exactly elegant, and that's when namespaces come in handy.

A namespace is defined using the namespace keyword, followed by the name of the namespace. For example

<?php
namespace App\Http\Controllers;

class PostsController {
    // 
}
?>

You can learn more about Namespaces in PHP official documentation

Or if you are a beginner, this article might be more beginner-friendly

How Do You Upgrade The Laravel Project Version?

The guideline is unique for all laravel versions. So, for example, if you want to upgrade from Laravel 8 to Laravel 9, you must follow different instructions than when you want to upgrade from Laravel 7 to Laravel 8.

Laravel official documentation contains guidelines for each version. You can visit their documentation's Upgrade Guide page https://laravel.com/docs/9.x/upgrade. Choose the version you want to upgrade to in the top right corner. And follow the instruction.

[!] Important note: remember to update dependencies as well, PHP and Composer. And it is also best practice to back up your project before upgrading, just to be safe.

How Do You Know How Many Controllers To Make In Laravel?

In Laravel, the number of controllers you need to create depends on the complexity and requirements of your application. However, as a general rule, you should create a separate controller for each distinct functional area of your application. This helps to keep your code organized and modular, making it easier to maintain and test. 

For example, suppose you have a blog application. In that case, you might have a PostsController for handling post-related actions (such as displaying a list of posts, displaying a single post, creating a new post, etc.), a CategoriesController for handling category-related actions, and a CommentsController for handling comment-related actions (such as adding a new comment, deleting a comment, etc.). 

Ultimately, the number of controllers you need will depend on the specific requirements of your application. You should balance having too many controllers (which can make your codebase harder to navigate) and having too few controllers (which can result in controllers that are too complex and difficult to manage).

How Does CSRF protection Laravel Work?

Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) protection is a security measure to prevent malicious attacks on web applications. It is an attack where a malicious website or script sends a request to a target website on behalf of a victim user without their knowledge or consent. The target website, not knowing the request was not made by the user, processes the request as if it were a legitimate request from the user.

CSRF protection in Laravel works by adding a token to each HTTP request a user makes. This token is verified on the server to ensure that the request was actually made by the same user who initiated the session. The token is passed along in a hidden form field or as a header in the request, allowing the server to validate the authenticity of the request. Laravel generates a new CSRF token for each session, making it difficult for attackers to reuse an old token. This helps protect against attacks where a malicious website or script tries to perform actions on a user's behalf without their knowledge or consent.

How Do Laravel Facades Access The Service Container?

Laravel Facades are classes that provide a static interface and access to an object from the container. 

Laravel facades and any facades we create extend the base "Illuminate\Supports\Facades\Facade" class. The Facade base class uses the __callStatic() magic method to defer calls from the facade to an object resolved from the container. Each facade class has a method called getFacadeAccessor() that has a job to return the name of the service container binding. When a user references any static methods on the Cache facade, for example, Laravel resolves the "cache" binding from the container and runs the requested method against that object. ("cache" in this example, is the name that Cache facade's getFacadeAccessor() method returns) 

To associate a Facade with a class in the service container, you must add an entry in the "aliases" array in the "config/app.php" configuration file. The entry's key is the name of the Facade, and the value is the fully qualified class name that should be returned when the Facade is accessed.

When a Facade is used in code, it appears as if you are directly accessing a static method on a class. In reality, the Facade is a convenient way of accessing a class instance managed by the service container. This makes it easy to swap out implementations of a class without affecting the rest of the application.

Is Laravel Authentication Secure, And Why?

Laravel's built-in authentication system is considered secure, following best authentication practices and modern security standards. Some of the reasons for its security are:

1. Hashed Passwords: Laravel uses bcrypt, a one-way hashing algorithm, to securely store passwords in the database. This means attackers cannot obtain plaintext passwords even if a database is compromised.
2. Password Reset Tokens: Laravel provides convenient services for sending password reset links and secures resetting passwords. Password reset tokens that help prevent unauthorized access are generated using a cryptographically secure random number generator and are stored securely in the database.
3. CSRF Protection: Laravel provides built-in protection against cross-site request forgery (CSRF) attacks. It generates a unique token for each user session and adds it to each HTTP request, allowing the server to validate the authenticity of the request.
4. Encrypted Cookies: Laravel uses encrypted cookies to store session data, providing an extra layer of security.

That being said, it's important to remember that no authentication system can guarantee 100% security, and it's important to stay up-to-date with security best practices and continuously monitor and improve your Laravel application's security. You can read more in-depth about Laravel's security best practices here. 

How To Build An Authentication System For A Customer In Laravel? (Package)

One of the best ways to build an authentication system for a customer in Laravel if you don't really need any Oauth functionality is to use Laravel Sanctum. Laravel sanctum authentication is an authentication package supported by Laravel. It provides two ways to build authentication.

The first way is SPA Authentication for single-page applications, which can be both parts of your 

Laravel project and a completely separate project. For this feature, Sanctum does not use tokens of any kind. Instead, Sanctum uses Laravel's built-in cookie-based session authentication services. This approach to authentication provides the benefits of CSRF protection and session authentication and protects against leakage of the authentication credentials via XSS.

The other way is issuing API Tokens, which is token-based authentication. Laravel documentation has full guidelines about both approaches. You can simply visit their web page and follow the instructions.

Laravel also provides a simple and convenient way to authenticate with OAuth providers using Laravel Socialite. Socialite currently supports authentication via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google, GitHub, GitLab, and BitBucket. You can follow the complete guideline in the official Laravel documentation 

What Is The Point Of Passing Data To The View In Laravel?

In Laravel, passing data from the controller to the view is an important feature that allows you to dynamically generate HTML pages based on the available data in your application. The data passed to the view can be used to display information, such as user profiles, product listings, or any other information that needs to be displayed in a specific format on the front end of your application.

By passing data to the view, you can keep your controller code clean and separate from the HTML code, making it easier to maintain and modify your application over time. The data passed to the view can also be used to decide what to display, such as showing or hiding certain elements based on the user's role or the state of your application.

In Laravel, passing data to view can be managed by using an associative array, which can be passed as a second argument to the view function. The array's keys become variables in the view, and the values can be displayed in the HTML. For example

$data = [
    'name' => 'John Doe',
    'email' => 'johndoe@example.com',
];

return view('profile', $data);

In the view profile.blade.php, you can access the name and email variables as follows:

<h1>{{ $name }}</h1>
<p>{{ $email }}</p>

What is Route::get() in Laravel?

Route::get() is a method in the Laravel framework used to define a route for HTTP GET requests. A route is a URL pattern that maps to a specific action in your application.

In Laravel, you can use the Route::get() method to define a route that will respond to a GET request made to a specific URL. The method takes two arguments: the URL pattern and a closure or a controller method that will be executed when the route is triggered.

Here's an example of how you could use Route::get() to define a simple route that returns a string when a user visits the URL /hello:

Route::get('/hello', function () {
    return 'Hello, World!';
});

In this example, when a user visits the URL /hello, Laravel will trigger the closure defined in the Route::get() method and return the string Hello, World!

You can also specify a controller method to handle the logic for the route instead of using a closure:

Route::get('/hello', [ExampleController::class, ‘index']);

In this example, the ExampleController class contains a method named index that will be executed when the route is triggered.

How Do We Save A Model In Laravel?

To save a model in Laravel, you can use the `save` method on an instance of the model:

$user = new User;
$user->name = 'John Doe';
$user->email = 'john@example.com';
$user->save();

This will insert a new record into the user's table with the specified name and email.

You can also use the `create` method on the model:

$user = User::create([
    'name' => 'John Doe',
    'email' => 'john@example.com',
]);

This method will insert a new record into the database and will return an instance of the created model.

To use the `create` method, you must have the `$fillable` property with appropriate fields defined in your model.

Why Do We Use Fillable In Laravel?

The "fillable" property defines which fields of a model can be mass-assigned when using the create or update method. It's a security measure to prevent unauthorized updates of fields in the database.

In other words, it allows you to explicitly declare which fields can be saved in the database using the mass assignment.

For example, if you have a User model with a fillable property that consists of only the "name" and "email" fields:

class User extends Model
{
    protected $fillable = ['name', 'email'];
}

It means that when you call User::create or $user->update and pass an array of data, only the "name" and "email" fields will be updated in the database.