PHP Laravel Basics — Complete Beginner's Guide to the Laravel Framework

In this tutorial, you will learn about PHP Laravel Basics. We cover key concepts, practical examples, and best practices to help you master this topic.

Laravel is the most popular PHP web framework, providing an elegant syntax for routing, database access, templating, and authentication that accelerates development of modern web applications. This tutorial covers installing Laravel, understanding the MVC architecture, defining routes and controllers, building Blade templates, modeling data with Eloquent ORM and migrations, and using Artisan commands to scaffold code.

What You'll Learn

• Installing Laravel via Composer and configuring the environment file
• Understanding the MVC directory structure and request lifecycle
• Defining web routes, route parameters, and named routes
• Creating controllers and organizing logic with resource controllers
• Building Blade templates with layouts, components, and directives
• Using Eloquent ORM for database queries, relationships, and migrations
• Leveraging Artisan for code generation and maintenance

Why It Matters

Laravel handles the repetitive parts of web development: routing, session management, CSRF protection, database abstraction, and authentication. Instead of writing boilerplate code for every project, you focus on the business logic. Laravel also enforces best practices like dependency injection, testing, and Separation Of Concerns through its MVC architecture, making your code maintainable and scalable.

Real-World Use

Doda Browser's account dashboard is built with Laravel. The framework's built-in Rate Limiting protects the API from abuse, Eloquent queries the user database efficiently, and Blade renders pages with consistent layouts. Laravel Queues handle email notifications asynchronously, keeping the UI responsive even during high traffic.

Learning Path

flowchart LR
  A[PSR Standards] --> B[Laravel Basics\nYou are here]
  B --> C[Symfony Basics]
  style B fill:#f90,color:#fff

Installing Laravel

Create a new Laravel project:

composer create-project laravel/laravel my-app
cd my-app

Start the development server:

php artisan serve

Output:

  INFO  Server running on [http://127.0.0.1:8000].

Open http://127.0.0.1:8000 in your browser. You should see the Laravel welcome page.

Directory Structure

Key directories in a Laravel project:

Defining Routes

Open routes/web.php:

<?php
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Route;

Route::get('/', function () {
  return view('welcome');
});

Route::get('/hello/{name}', function (string $name) {
  return "Hello, $name! Welcome to Laravel.";
});

Route::get('/products/{category}/{id}', function (string $category, int $id) {
  return "Category: $category, Product ID: $id";
})->where(['id' => '[0-9]+']);

Test with the browser or curl:

curl http://127.0.0.1:8000/hello/Alice
curl http://127.0.0.1:8000/products/electronics/42

Output:

Hello, Alice! Welcome to Laravel.
Category: electronics, Product ID: 42

Creating Controllers

Generate a controller with Artisan:

php artisan make:controller ProductController

This creates app/Http/Controllers/ProductController.php:

<?php
namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use Illuminate\Http\Request;

class ProductController extends Controller
{
  public function index(): string
  {
    return 'List all products';
  }

  public function show(int $id): string
  {
    return "Show product with ID: $id";
  }

  public function store(Request $request): string
  {
    $validated = $request->validate([
      'name' => 'required|string|max:255',
      'price' => 'required|numeric|min:0',
    ]);
    return "Product created: {$validated['name']}";
  }
}

Register routes for the controller in routes/web.php:

<?php
use App\Http\Controllers\ProductController;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Route;

Route::get('/products', [ProductController::class, 'index']);
Route::get('/products/{id}', [ProductController::class, 'show'])->whereNumber('id');
Route::post('/products', [ProductController::class, 'store']);

Use a resource controller for CRUD operations:

php artisan make:controller UserController --resource

<?php
use App\Http\Controllers\UserController;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Route;

Route::resource('/users', UserController::class);

This registers seven routes: index, create, store, show, edit, update, and destroy.

Blade Templates

Blade is Laravel's template engine. Create resources/views/layouts/app.blade.php:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
  <title>@yield('title', 'Laravel App')</title>
</head>
<body>
  <header>
    <h1>Laravel Demo</h1>
    <nav>
      <a href="{{ url('/') }}">Home</a>
      <a href="{{ url('/products') }}">Products</a>
    </nav>
  </header>
  <main>
    @yield('content')
  </main>
</body>
</html>

Create resources/views/products.blade.php:

@extends('layouts.app')

@section('title', 'Products')

@section('content')
  <h2>Our Products</h2>
  <ul>
    @foreach ($products as $product)
      <li>{{ $product['name'] }} - ${{ $product['price'] }}</li>
    @endforeach
  </ul>
@endsection

Update the controller to return the view:

<?php
namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use Illuminate\Http\Request;

class ProductController extends Controller
{
  public function index()
  {
    $products = [
      ['name' => 'Laptop', 'price' => 999],
      ['name' => 'Phone', 'price' => 699],
      ['name' => 'Tablet', 'price' => 399],
    ];
    return view('products', ['products' => $products]);
  }
}

Eloquent ORM and Migrations

Generate a Migration and model:

php artisan make:model Product -m

Edit the migration at database/migrations/xxxx_create_products_table.php:

<?php
use Illuminate\Database\Migrations\Migration;
use Illuminate\Database\Schema\Blueprint;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Schema;

return new class extends Migration
{
  public function up(): void
  {
    Schema::create('products', function (Blueprint $table) {
      $table->id();
      $table->string('name');
      $table->decimal('price', 8, 2);
      $table->text('description')->nullable();
      $table->timestamps();
    });
  }

  public function down(): void
  {
    Schema::dropIfExists('products');
  }
};

Run the migration:

php artisan migrate

Output:

  INFO  Running migrations.
  xxxx_xx_xx_xxxxxx_create_products_table ............................................... 32ms DONE

Use the model in a controller:

<?php
namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use App\Models\Product;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;

class ProductController extends Controller
{
  public function index()
  {
    $products = Product::all();
    return view('products', ['products' => $products]);
  }

  public function store(Request $request)
  {
    $product = Product::create($request->validate([
      'name' => 'required|string|max:255',
      'price' => 'required|numeric|min:0',
    ]));
    return redirect('/products');
  }
}

Common Mistakes

1. Not using Artisan for generation: Hand-writing controllers, models, and migrations is error-prone. Artisan generates correct boilerplate and places files in the right directories.
2. Putting business logic in routes: Route closures should be minimal. Move logic to controllers or service classes for testability and reuse.
3. Forgetting to run migrations after model changes: If you add a column to a migration but do not run php artisan migrate, the database schema does not match the model.
4. Using raw SQL instead of Eloquent: Eloquent provides query building, relationship loading, and eager loading. Raw SQL negates Laravel's database abstraction benefits.
5. Ignoring CSRF protection: All POST requests in Laravel require a CSRF token. Use @csrf in Blade forms and include the token in AJAX requests using the meta tag.

Practice Questions

1. What is the purpose of php artisan serve?

   • It starts a local development server on 127.0.0.1:8000 for testing without configuring Apache or Nginx.

2. How do you define a route that accepts a numeric ID?

   • Use a route parameter with a where constraint: Route::get('/products/{id}', ...)->whereNumber('id').

3. What is Blade's @yield directive used for?

   • It defines a section in a layout that child templates fill using @section. This creates reusable page layouts.

4. How do you create a database table in Laravel?

   • Generate a migration with php artisan make:migration, define the schema in the up method, and run php artisan migrate.

5. Challenge: Build a blog application with Laravel that has posts, categories, and comments. Use Eloquent relationships (hasMany, belongsTo) and display nested comments in Blade.

Mini Project

Create a product review system with Laravel:

• Use a resource controller for Review management.
• Create migrations for products, reviews, and users tables.
• Define Eloquent relationships: a product has many reviews; a review belongs to a user.
• Build Blade templates for listing products, viewing a product with reviews, and submitting a review form.
• Add validation: review rating must be 1-5, title is required, body is optional.
• Implement authentication with Laravel Breeze or the built-in auth scaffolding.

FAQ

What's Next

Laravel is one option. Learn the other major PHP framework with Symfony Basics.