laravel-best-practices.md

Laravel Best Practices

Laravel is a PHP framework and just like any other PHP framework there are several ways to get a single thing done in a lot of cases, for conformity these are hand-picked best practices.

1. Installation of every Laravel project should be done with:

laravel new {projectname-backend}

2. The project name should be in kebab cases in the format: {projectname-backend}
3. All file names should be in title cases ProductController, PostService, Category
4. All services should be named after the model name if tied to a model, else it should carry the name of the entity, and the suffix 'Service' i.e. {Name}Service
5. The RouterServiceProvider should be used for route patterns.
6. The code editor or IDE should always have the PHPCS setup and active on it.
7. PSR12 standard should be used in the Laravel Pint setup.
8. Every function should have only one responsibility
9. When several models use a certain logic or function that performs similar operation, a Trait should be created.
10. A class and a method should have only one responsibility.
11. Put all DB-related logic into Eloquent models or into Repository classes if you're using Query Builder or raw SQL queries.

public function index()
{
    return view('index', ['clients' => $this->client->getWithNewOrders()]);
}

class Client extends Model
{
    public function getWithNewOrders()
    {
        return $this->verified()
            ->with(['orders' => function ($q) {
                $q->where('created_at', '>', Carbon::today()->subWeek());
            }])
            ->get();
    }
}

12. Reuse code when you can. SRP is helping you to avoid duplication. Also, reuse Blade templates, use Eloquent scopes etc.

public function scopeActive($q)
{
    return $q->where('verified', 1)->whereNotNull('deleted_at');
}

public function getActive()
{
    return $this->active()->get();
}

public function getArticles()
{
    return $this->whereHas('user', function ($q) {
            $q->active();
        })->get();
}

13. Eloquent allows you to write readable and maintainable code. Also, Eloquent has great built-in tools like soft deletes, events, scopes etc.

Article::has('user.profile')->verified()->latest()->get();

14. Document your code, but prefer descriptive method and variable names over comments

if ($this->hasJoins())

15. Follow naming conventions accepted by Laravel community and PSR2

What	How	Good	Bad
Controller	singular	ArticleController	ArticlesController
Route	plural	articles/1	article/1
Named route	snake_case with dot notation	users.show_active	users.show-active, show-active-users
Model	singular	User	Users
hasOne or belongsTo relationship	singular	articleComment	articleComments, article_comment
All other relationships	plural	articleComments	articleComment, article_comments
Table	plural	article_comments	article_comment, articleComments
Pivot table	singular model names in alphabetical order	article_user	user_article, articles_users
Table column	snake_case without model name	meta_title	MetaTitle; article_meta_title
Model property	snake_case	$model->created_at	$model->createdAt
Foreign key	singular model name with _id suffix	article_id	ArticleId, id_article, articles_id
Primary key	-	id	custom_id
Migration	-	2017_01_01_000000_create_articles_table	2017_01_01_000000_articles
Method	camelCase	getAll	get_all
Method in resource controller	table	store	saveArticle
Method in test class	camelCase	testGuestCannotSeeArticle	test_guest_cannot_see_article
Variable	camelCase	$articlesWithAuthor	$articles_with_author
Collection	descriptive, plural	$activeUsers = User::active()->get()	$active, $data
Object	descriptive, singular	$activeUser = User::active()->first()	$users, $obj
Config and language files index	snake_case	articles_enabled	ArticlesEnabled; articles-enabled
View	kebab-case	show-filtered.blade.php	showFiltered.blade.php, show_filtered.blade.php
Config	snake_case	google_calendar.php	googleCalendar.php, google-calendar.php
Contract (interface)	adjective or noun	AuthenticationInterface	Authenticatable, IAuthentication
Trait	adjective	Notifiable	NotificationTrait