Routing Controllers

Routing controllers allow you to create the controller classes with methods used to handle the requests.

Now, we will understand the routing controllers through an example.

Step 1: First, we need to create a controller. We already created the controller named as 'PostController' in the previous topic.

Step 2: Open the web.php file and write the following code:

In the above code, '/post' is the URL that we want to access, and PostController is the name of the controller. The 'index' is the name of the method available in the PostController.php file, and @index indicates that the index() method should be hit when we access the '/post' url.

Step 3: Add the code which is shown below as highlighted:

<?php
namespace App\Http\Controllers;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
class PostController extends Controller
{
    /**
     * Display a listing of the resource.
     *
     * @return \Illuminate\Http\Response
     */
public function index()
{
      return "Hello javaTpoint";}     →
/**
     * Show the form for creating a new resource.
     *
     * @return \Illuminate\Http\Response
 */
public function create()
{
        //
}
/**
     * Store a newly created resource in storage.
     *
     * @param  \Illuminate\Http\Reques $request
     * @return \Illuminate\Http\Response
     */
public function store(Request $request)
    
{

        //
   
 }
 /**
     * Display the specified resource.
     *
     * @param  int  $id
     * @return \Illuminate\Http \Response
*/
public function show($id)
{
        //
}
/**
     * Show the form for editing the specified resource.
     *
     * @param  int  $id
     * @return  \Illuminate\Http\Response
     */
public function edit($id)
{
        //
 }

/**
     * Update the specified resource in storage.
     *
     * @param  \Illuminate\Http\Request   
$request
     * @param  int  $id
     * @return \Illuminate\Http\Response
     */
    
public function update(Request $request, $id)
{
        //
}

    
/**
     * Remove the specified resource from storage.
     *
     * @param  int  $id
     * @return  
\Illuminate\Http\Response
     */
 public function destroy($id)
 {
       //
  }
}

Step 4: Enter the URL in the browser, i.e., localhost/laravelproject/public/host, then the output would be shown as below:

Output

Till now, we have observed how we can access the Controller. Now, we will see that how to pass the data to the Controller class.

Passing data to the Controller

Let's understand through an example of how we can pass the data to the Controller:

Step 1: Open the web.php file and add the following code:

Route::get('/post/{id}','PostController@index');

The above code contains the 'id' parameter in the '/post' url.

Step 2: Edit the PostController.php file.

public function index($id)
{
    return "ID is :". $id;
}

In the above case, we have updated the index() method. We have passed the 'id' parameter in the index() method.

Step 3: Enter the URL 'localhost/laravelproject/post/100' into the web browser, then the output would be shown as below:

Controllers and Namespaces

When we specify the controller class in Route::get() method, then we do not need to specify the full controller namespace. As RouteServiceProvider loads all the route files that contain the namespace, we just need to specify the class name that comes after the App/Http/Controllers portion of the namespace.

If the full controller class is App/Http/Controllers/Post/PostController, then we can register the routes of the Controller as given below:

Route::get('\post','Post\PostController@index');

Single Action Controllers

If we want to use the single method in a controller, then we can use the single __invoke() method on the controller.

When we create the controller by using the command php artisan:make controller PostController then the structure of the PostController file would be:

<?php
namespace App\Http\Controllers;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
class PostController extends Controller
{
    
      //

}

Now, we add the code of __invoke() function in a PostController class:

<?php
namespace App\Http\Controllers;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
class PostController extends Controller
{
    //
 public function __invoke($id)
{
  return "id is : ". $id;
}
}

In the end, we add the code in the web.php file, which is responsible for handling the actions.

The above code hits the __invoke() method of a PostController class. This concludes that we do not need to write the @invoke method for accessing the single action controllers.

Output

When we enter the URL 'localhost/laravelproject/public/post/67', then the output would be: