Creating REST API Example with Laravel 5

This walkthrough should work on a VM described here

Assuming Database configuration is already set

in app/config/database.php or .env file

cd /var/www/dev1.local/laravel

Create Database Migration

In this example I decided to create a Courses table

php artisan make:migration create_courses_table --create=courses


 

Navigate with SFTP to /var/www/dev1.local/laravel/database/migrations

Edit the created file 2015_11_10_152128_create_courses_table.php and add the required fields.

 

Adding fields for example, Course name, Classroom, Teacher

$table->string(‘course_name’);
$table->string(‘classroom’);
$table->string(‘teacher’);

 

 

Create Models folder in  /var/www/dev1.local/laravel/app

mkdir /var/www/dev1.local/laravel/app/Models

Create Course Model

sudo vi  mkdir /var/www/dev1.local/laravel/app/Models/Course.php

 

Seeding the Database

cd /var/www/dev1.local/laravel/database/seeds

sudo vi CoursestTableSeeder.php

 

vi /var/www/dev1.local/laravel/database/seeds/DatabaseSeeder.php

 

composer dump-autoload

php artisan clear-compiled

Run php artisan db:seed

Course Controller

php artisan make:controller CourseController

 

sudo vi /var/www/dev1.local/laravel/app/Http/Controllers/CourseController.php

 

Implementing the Controller

Add the following uses at the top

use DB;
use Response;
use Input;
use App\Models\Course;

Implementing some of the actions. Index, Store, Show, Delete

public function index()
{
return Response::json(Course::get());
}

public function store()
{
Course::create(array(
‘teacher’ => Input::get(‘teacher’),
‘classroom’ => Input::get(‘classroom’),
‘course_name’ => Input::get(‘course_name’)
));
return Response::json(array(‘success’ => true));
}

public function show($id)
{
$course = Course::find($id);
if(!isset($course)){
return $this->respondNotFound(‘Course does not exist’);
}
return $this->respond([
‘data’ => $this->transform($course)
]);
}

Creating Routes

sudo vi /var/www/dev1.local/laravel/app/Http/routes.php

Add

Route::group([‘prefix’ => ‘/api/v1’], function()
{
Route::resource(‘course’, ‘CourseController’ );
});

save and execute

php artisan route:list

Testing the API

http://dev1.local/index.php/api/v1/courses

or

http://dev1.local/api/v1/courses

 

Next Post is about Creating Angular based Front-end to consume the above API