Introducing Laravel 11

This overview is based on a Task List project, see here.

For official docs on setting up the project, see here.

PHP.ini

PHP startup configuration is defined in php.ini.

$ php --ini

PHP extensions

You may need to enable the PHP curl and dom (via xml) extensions. Use:

sudo apt install php-curl

sudo apt install php-xml

…and then restart Apache:

sudo service apache2 restart

Check the PHP modules curl and dom are installed with:

php -m

NPM

The project utilises Node. Install Node and Node Package Manager from here:

# Download and install nvm:
curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.40.1/install.sh | bash
source ~/.bashrc

# Download and install Node.js:
nvm install 22

# Verify the Node.js version:
node -v # Should print "v22.13.0".
nvm current # Should print "v22.13.0".

# Verify npm version:

npm -v # Should print "10.9.2".

Remove the node_modules directory if it exists, and then rebuild it with:

npm install

A number of run scripts are defined here, run:

npm run dev

SQLite

Laravel 11 target SQLite by default as its database, see DB_CONNECTION in the environment variable file (.env). This file is not normally shared with other developers.

Install SQLite extension with

sudo apt install php-sqlite3

(use e.g. sudo apt install php8.3-sqlite3 for a specific version)

To enable the SQLite driver, uncomment (remove the semicolon) from the following line in php.ini:

;extension=sqlite3

The database tables are found in the project subdirectory /database, resulting from migration (version control for databases, enabling developers to define and share the application’s schema). Typically, run a database migration when creating or updating a database schema.

To migrate a database (needed if one were to use a database other than SQLite), enter:

php artisan migrate

With SQLite, this command will generate a SQLite database file: /database/database.sqlite.

It is normally good practice to create a different schema for each Laravel project, so each project will involve at least one database migration before startup.

The Application key

The Laravel App key is defined in .env under APP_KEY and must be initialised with

php artisan key:generate

The key is used to encrypt/decrypt data and generate unique authentication tokens that are part of securing protected resources.

Laravel version check and running the server

Check the Laravel framework version (currently set to v11.38. in composer.json) with:

php artisan --version

With all the above set up, run a server from localhost with e.g. port 9000:

php artisan serve --port=9000

Opening this in a browser will yield a Laravel dashboard.

Close the server (Ubuntu) with CTRL-C.

Overview of the Laravel directory structure

  • /app - bespoke logic
  • /bootstrap - application function definitions
  • /config - base Laravel configuration (often referring to .env)
  • /database - all things database, including SQLite files
  • /node_modules - NodeJS dependencies
  • /public - files that would be publicly accessible after deployment (e.g. Apache configuration)
  • /resources - project assets, including JS scripts and Blade web templates (see here)
  • /routes - URL routing
  • /storage - Laravel storage and cache
  • /tests - automated test files
  • /vendor - Composer managed files for Laravel and the project dependencies

Other Laravel project files in the root directory of note:

  • .editorconfig - development configuration typically handling developer tool conventions
  • .env - environment variables, developer specific configuration, sometimes sensitive info and not normally shared with other developers
  • .env.example - template of .env, this file may contain standards/conventions/defaults that other developers should follow with their own env., and therefore is distributed with the project
  • artisan - this is a PHP script typically run during development with php artisan
  • composer.json and composer.lock - project libraries/dependencies handled by Composer (and saved in /vendor)
  • package.json and package.lock - frontend-specific libraries/dependencies
  • phpunit.xml - PHP unit testing configuration

There will also be JS scripts that manage Vite (Vue based frontend tools), Tailwind and PostCSS (the latter two are CSS tools) in the root directory.

Database models

Database models (classes that can be mapped as tables via Eloquent ORM) are defined in the /app/Models directory. One can create a new model with:

php artisan make:model TableName -m

The -m flag also performs a database migration after creating the PHP class. The normal convention is to define the singular class, and Laravel will build the table name as the plural, and apply a lowercase to the first character.

php artisan make:model Task -m

The above model will then be represented by the table tasks, and recorded in the migrations directory (see /database/migrations).

Creating fake entities

Fake entities can be committed to the database using /database/factories. The range of data created includes timestamps, fake email addresses and tokens, to name a few.

Factories can also be used to update one or attributes of an entity to simulate certain conditions e.g. nullify a state marker (isProcessed, isEnabled).

Create a factory (for the Task entity) with:

php artisan make:factory TaskFactory --model=Task

The factory methods can then be called from /database/seeders which call a factory one or more times, making modifications to the database.

Generally only one Seeder is defined and called per project. Simply add factories to the seeder and then run

php artisan db:seed

This would add to the database.

To clear the database (care not run this in production) and start over with newer entities, run:

php artisan migrate:refresh --seed

Database queries

Laravel will recognise field names and types from the database, the aforementioned Model “Task” does not need to be implemented with class members. When performing queries, the entities are of type Collection.

The Query Builder documents all the SQL like phrases available to Laravel.

Form Requests

These classes define authorisation and validation of HTTP requests and are located in /app/Http/Requests. They can be initialised as follows for Task entities:

$ php artisan make:request TaskRequest

CSS

This project uses Tailwind CSS

JS

This project uses a lightweight JS framework: AlpineJS