Controllers #

Instead of using Closures in route files to define all your request handling logic, you can use controllers to organize this behavior. Controllers can group related request handling logic into a single class. For instance, you may want to group all logic that handles user account details into an AccountsController class: actions such as displaying, creating, updating, and deleting users.

Controllers can also be shared among different route files, giving you a single location to define a controller that can be used in different contexts throughout your application. Leaf MVC and Leaf API controllers are stored in the app/controllers. Any new controller you create will be saved in this location.

Generating Controllers #

Leaf MVC and Leaf API come with a console helper that can generate a new controller for you. To create a new controller, use the g:controller command:

php leaf g:controller users

This will create a new UsersController class in the app/controllers directory. The controller will contain a single method, index, that returns a simple string:

<?php

namespace App\Controllers;

class UsersController extends Controller
{
    public function index()
    {
        response()->json([
            'message' => 'UsersController@index output'
        ]);
    }
}

You can see that the controller extends the App\Controllers\Controller class. This is the base controller class provided by Leaf MVC and Leaf API. It is the parent class for all your application's controllers and serves as a place to put shared logic.

Defining Controllers #

The above section looked at generating a new controller using the console helper in Leaf MVC and Leaf API. If you are using Leaf Core, you can manually create a controller in any way you prefer. Controllers are basically classes that have callable actions and return responses. To add some extra functionality to your controllers, you can extend the Leaf\Controller class.

For example, let's create a new controller that returns a simple string:

<?php

namespace Controllers;

use Leaf\Controller;

class HomeController extends Controller
{
  public function index()
  {
    response()->json('Hello World!');
  }
}

You can define a route to this controller action like so:

$app->get('/', 'HomeController@index');

app()->get('/', 'HomeController@index');

Resource Controllers #

Leaf resource routing assigns the typical create, read, update, and delete ("CRUD") routes to a controller with a single line of code. To get started, we can use the g:controller command's --resource option to quickly create a controller to handle these actions:

php leaf g:controller Photos --resource

This command will generate a controller at app/controllers/PhotosController.php. The controller will contain a method for each of the available resource operations. Next, you may register a resource route that points to the controller:

app()->resource('/photos', 'PhotosController');

The resource() method accepts a URI and a controller name. The URI may contain route parameters, which will be passed to the controller methods. The controller name should be the fully-qualified class name of the controller. In this example, the UsersController class should be defined in the app/controllers directory.

This single route declaration creates multiple routes to handle a variety of actions on the resource. The generated controller will already have methods stubbed for each of these actions:

<?php
namespace App\Controllers;

class PhotosController extends Controller {
    /**
     * Display a listing of the resource.
     */
    public function index() {
        //
    }

    /**
     * Show the form for creating a new resource.
     */
    public function create() {
        //
    }

    /**
     * Store a newly created resource in storage.
     */
    public function store() {
        //
    }

    /**
     * Display the specified resource.
     */
    public function show($id) {
        //
    }

    /**
     * Show the form for editing the specified resource.
     */
    public function edit($id) {
        //
    }

    /**
     * Update the specified resource in storage.
     */
    public function update($id) {
        //
    }

    /**
     * Remove the specified resource from storage.
     */
    public function destroy($id) {
        //
    }
}

Also routes are mapped to these methods:

Leaf Console Helper #

You can also generate a model together with your controller.

php leaf g:controller <ControllerName> -m

Create a template for your controller

php leaf g:controller <ControllerName> -t

Create a model and migration for your controller

php leaf g:controller <ControllerName> -a

Controller Help #

Description:
  Create a new controller class

Usage:
  g:controller [options] [--] <controller>

Arguments:
  controller            controller name

Options:
  -a, --all             Create a model and migration for controller
  -m, --model           Create a model for controller
  -r, --resource        Create a resource controller
  -w, --web             Create a web(ordinary) controller
  -h, --help            Display this help message
  -q, --quiet           Do not output any message
  -V, --version         Display this application version
      --ansi            Force ANSI output
      --no-ansi         Disable ANSI output
  -n, --no-interaction  Do not ask any interactive question
  -v|vv|vvv, --verbose  Increase the verbosity of messages: 1 for normal output, 2 for more verbose output and 3 for debu

Next Steps #

Follow along with the next steps to learn more about Leaf MVC.