Build REST API with Laravel 9

In this post, we’ll show you how to build a REST API with laravel 9. Before you can proceed with this tutorial, you need to install the latest version of laravel, and make sure you have the following prerequisites:

• PHP 8.0.2+
• MySql
• Composer

Laravel 9 is a full-stack web application framework with a robust and visually appealing design that is easy to use to create tradiotional web applications and modern web applications that expose REST APIs that could be consumed by front-end applications such as Angular, React or Vue.js.

Using a web framework as a basis and starting point for developing your application will allow you to focus on creating something really amazing while the foundation takes care of the low-level technicalities for you.

You can also use laravel 9 to build a REST API that can be consumed by a JavaScript client application.

Create a laravel 9 project

You can create a laravel 9 by creating using composer as in the following instructions.

Open a new command-line interface and and run the following command:

composer create-project laravel/laravel laravel9restapi

Wait for composer to create the project’s files and install the dependencies from its registry then run the following commands to serve your laravel 9 application using a local development server:

cd laravel9restapi
php artisan serve

Create a new laravel 9 model

Open a new command line interface and run the following command from the project root folder to generate a product model with a migration file:

php artisan make:model Product -m

Next, opne the migartion file inside the database/migrations folder and update it as follows:

<?php

use Illuminate\Database\Migrations\Migration;
use Illuminate\Database\Schema\Blueprint;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Schema;

return new class extends Migration
{
    /**
     * Run the migrations.
     *
     * @return void
     */
    public function up()
    {
        Schema::create('products', function (Blueprint $table) {
            $table->id();
            $table->string('reference');
            $table->string('name');
            $table->longText('description');
            $table->timestamps();
        });
    }

    /**
     * Reverse the migrations.
     *
     * @return void
     */
    public function down()
    {
        Schema::dropIfExists('products');
    }
};

Following that, open the app/models/Product.php file and update the fillable array as follows:

<?php

namespace App\Models;

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Factories\HasFactory;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;

class Product extends Model
{
    use HasFactory;

    protected $fillable = ['reference', 'name'];
}

Create the REST API controller

After creating the model and migration file for products, let’s now create the controller. Head back to your command-line interface and run the following command:

php artisan make:controller Api\\ProductController --model=Product

Next, open the app/Http/Controllers/Api/ProductController.php file and update the index() function it as follows:

public function index()
{
    $products = Product::all();
    return response()->json([
        'products' => $products
    ]);
}

Next, update the store() method as follows:

public function store(StoreProductRequest $request)
{
    $product = Product::create($request->all());

    return response()->json([
        'message' => "Product saved successfully!",
        'product' => $product
    ], 200);
}

Next, update the update() method as follows:

public function update(StoreProductRequest $request, Product $product)
{
    $product->update($request->all());

    return response()->json([
        'message' => "Product updated successfully!",
        'product' => $product
    ], 200);
}

Finally, update the destroy() method of the controller class as follows:

public function destroy(Product $product)
{
    $product->delete();

    return response()->json([
        'message' => "Product deleted successfully!",
    ], 200);
}

Go back to your command line interface and , generate a request as follows:

php artisan make:request StoreProductRequest

Open the app/Http/Requests/StoreProductRequest.php file as follows:

<?php

namespace App\Http\Requests;

use Illuminate\Foundation\Http\FormRequest;

class StoreProductRequest extends FormRequest
{
    /**
     * Determine if the user is authorized to make this request.
     *
     * @return bool
     */
    public function authorize()
    {
        return true;
    }

    /**
     * Get the validation rules that apply to the request.
     *
     * @return array
     */
    public function rules()
    {
        return [
            "name" => "required",
            "reference" => "required"
        ];
    }
}

Create the REST API endpoints

After that, open the routes/api.php file and add the REST API endpoints as follows:

<?php

use App\Http\Controllers\Api\ProductController;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Route;


Route::apiResource('products', ProductController::class);

You can test these API routes using a tool like Postman to send API requests to the laravel 9 application.

Conclusion

We’ve seen how to install laravel 9 by creating a new project using composer. In order to provide an amazing developer experience, Laravel includes features like robust dependency injection, a powerful database abstraction layer, queues and scheduled jobs, unit and integration testing, and more.

Laravel is a framework that can adapt with your skills, whether you are beginner to PHP web frameworks or have years of expertise. Laravel 9 assists you in taking your initial steps as a web developer or give you a push as you advance your skills.