Laravel Base

This is a packaged that brings small improvements to the Laravel framework.

All the improvements were made keeping in mind the Laravel way and good development practices. If you want to contribute don't hesitate.

Installation

{
    "require": {
        "ghunti/laravel-base": "5.0.*"
    }
}

Add the following middleware to the app/Http/Middleware:

protected $middleware = [
    ...<other middleware>...,
    'Ghunti\LaravelBase\Middleware\ShareMessagesFromSession',
];

Features

Permission Denied Exception

Exception/PermissionDeniedException.php

I like to use exceptions on my controllers to have a cleaner code followed by a bunch of catches, so this is just an exception that I throw whenever a user doesn't have enough permissions or is not logged in.

Validator

Validation/Validator.php

This is an extension to the Illuminate\Validation\Validator and adds a single method passOrFail.

If the validation fails, the method will create a new Ghunti\LaravelBase\Exception\ValidatorException and inject itself into the exception, throwing it.

Validator Exception

Exception/ValidatorException.php

This is an exception that holds the failed validation object. The idea is to use it like this:

use Ghunti\LaravelBase\Exception\ValidatorException;
...
try {
    Validator::make(
        Input::all(),
        array(
            'name' => array(
            'required',
            'unique:table_name',
            ),
        )
    )->passOrFail();

} catch (ValidatorException $e) {
    return Redirect::route('creation_route')
        ->withInput()
        ->withErrors($e->getValidator());
}

As you can see, this ways we can retrieve the validator from the exception ($e->getValidator()) to use it in any way we want.

Redirect With Messages

I like the way Laravel redirects the errors and makes them available on the views, so I've implemented the same logic for any message with the method withMessages().

    return Redirect::route('some_route')
        ->withMessages(
            array('success' => 'Something worked for a change!!!')
        );
    //or
    return Redirect::route('some_route')
        ->withMessages(
            array('error' => 'Crappy as usual!')
        );

Check that i'm passing an array to the withMessages() method and I'm even specifying a type for the message so latter on the view I can do:

<?php
    $messageMap = array(
        'information' => 'info',
        'success' => 'success',
        'warning' => 'warning',
        'error' => 'danger',
    );
?>

@foreach ($messageMap as $key => $class)
    @if ($messages->has($key))
        <div class="alert alert-{{ $class }}">
            <ul class="list-unstyled">
            @foreach ($messages->get($key, '<li>:message</li>') as $message)
                {{ $message }}
            @endforeach
            </ul>
        </div>
    @endif
@endforeach

Base Model

Models/BaseModel.php

The BaseModel is an abstract class that extends Eloquent and provides the method getValidationRules(). This method will return the validation rules for the current model, and wil cal the getCreateRules() method if the current model doesn't exist, or the getEditRules()method if it does.

If instead of extendind Eloquent you extend the BaseModel you end up with the possibility to call the getValidationRules() method anywhere in your code and be sure to get the proper validation rules.

try {
    Validator::make(
        Input::all(),
        Model::getValidationRules()
    )
    ->passOrFail();
    ...

//or

try {
    $model = $this->repository->findOrFail($id);
    Validator::make(
        Input::all(),
        $model->getValidationRules()
    )
    ->passOrFail();
    ...

Base Repository

Repositories/BaseRepository.php

The BaseRepository tries to separate the idea of repository from model/entity since there are some "questions" that should be answered by the repository and others by the model/entity.

The idea is that your repository includes all the methods that can hit the database (or any other storage system) and in some cases even return models.

Imagine that you want to list all your users ordered by their name so you create the allOrderedByName method. Instead of implementing this method in the model you implement it in the repository (that will end up calling the model):

public function allOrderedByName($direction = 'asc')
{
    return $this->model->orderBy('name', $direction)->get();
}

Scopes are also supported by the base repository, so you can code the scopes in your repository instead of the model

License

MIT