Building a Simple Laravel Backend for API Integration (without Views)

As a .NET developer, I frequently engage with APIs in my development tasks. Occasionally, I utilize Laravel backend for database-related work. Now, I'd like to walk you through a straightforward process of crafting our own backend.

You have to have Laravel installed, XAMPP installed, and Visual Studio Code as your code editor. That's all.

Step 1: Set Up the Project

1. Navigate to the directory(Folder) where you want to create your Laravel project. Then open the command prompt from there.
2. Create a new Laravel project(If you have Laravel globally installed, you can create a new Laravel project from any directory using the laravel new command)

laravel new yourProjectName        

3. Move into the project directory

cd yourProjectName        

4. Open from the Visual Studio Code

code .         

Step 2: Configure the Database

1. Open the .env file in the project root directory.
2. Set up the database connection details.

DB_CONNECTION=mysq
DB_HOST=127.0.0.1
DB_PORT=3306
DB_DATABASE=database_name
DB_USERNAME=database_username
DB_PASSWORD=database_password        

Step 3: Generate a Controller

1. Create a controller using the following command. (Use your controller name instead of PostController)

Launch a new terminal within Visual Studio Code and execute your PHP code there.

 php artisan make:controller PostController         

2. Open the created controller .php file in the app/Http/Controllers directory. (in my case its PostController.php)

3. Implement your API methods. (Lets implement after create the Model)

**Important

use Illuminate\Http\Response; // Import the Response class
use Illuminate\Http\Request;        

Step 4: Create API Routes

1. Open the routes/api.php file.(you create any named .php file here in the routes directory)
2. Define your API routes there.

Route::middleware('auth:sanctum')->get('/user', function (Request $request)
{
    return $request->user();
});

Route::get('/get', [PostController::class, 'index']);

Route::post('/post', [PostController::class, 'store']);

Route::delete('/delete/{id}', [PostController::class, 'destroy']);
        

3. Connect our controller here (in the top of the api.php for my case)

use App\Http\Controllers\PostController;        

Step 5: Set Up Model and Migration

let's work with the database using migrations. It's important to note that the database connection settings should be properly configured in the .env file. This ensures that our application communicates effectively with the database.

1. Generate a model and migration for your resource (in my case its Post )

php artisan make:model Post -m        

2. Open the migration file in the database/migrations directory and open the named migration file (in my case its date_timestamp_create_posts_table.php).

3. Design the table that you want to create. (in my case I'm going to create posts table in the database with id, title, content columns)

When designing the tables, remember to use plural nouns for the table names.

public function up(
    {
        //columns
        Schema::create('posts', function (Blueprint $table) {
            $table->id();
            $table->string('title');
            $table->text('content');
            $table->timestamps();
        });
    }
)        

4. Run the migration to create the table

php artisan migrate        

5. Open the created model and make the fields editable. (in may case in post )

class Post extends Model //model name is singular
{
    protected $fillable = ['title', 'content', 'created_at', 'updated_at'];
}        

**created_at and updated_at columns creating automatically.

6. Navigate to the api.php file, where we define our routes, and include the model

use App\Models\Post;        

Step 6: Implement API Logic

1. Open the PostController.php file in the Http/Controllers directory. (In my case it is PostController)
2. Implement the API methods (index, store, show, update, destroy) using the Post model. (Use your model, in my case its Post)

class PostController extends Controlle
{
    //get data
    public function index()
    {
        $posts = Post::all(); // Retrieve all posts from the database
        return response()->json($posts, Response::HTTP_OK); // Return the data as JSON
    }

    //post
    public function store(Request $request)
    {
        $validatedData = $request->validate([
            'title' => 'required|max:255',
            'content' => 'required',
        ]);

        // Create a new Post instance with the validated data
        $post = new Post([
            'title' => $validatedData['title'],
            'content' => $validatedData['content'],
        ]);

        $post->save(); // Save the new post to the database

        return response()->json($post, Response::HTTP_CREATED); // Return the new post as JSON
    }

    //delete
    public function destroy($id)
    {
        $post = Post::find($id);

        if (!$post) {
            return response()->json(['message' => 'Post not found'], Response::HTTP_NOT_FOUND);
        }

        $post->delete();
        return response()->json(['message' => 'Post deleted'], Response::HTTP_OK);
    }
}        

**Connect the model to the controller is also important.

use App\Models\Post;         

Step 7: Start Development Server

Start the Laravel development server Use below command

php artisan serve        

Step 8: Test Using Postman

Open Postman and Create requests to test your API endpoints.

POST

http://127.0.0.1:8000/api/post        

GET

http://127.0.0.1:8000/api/get        

DELETE

http://127.0.0.1:8000/api/delete/6        

Replace {id} with actual item IDs and adjust the JSON payloads accordingly.

Congrats! That's it! You've now built a simple Laravel backend for API integration without views. You can expand this by adding authentication, validation, and other features as needed.

Thank You.