How to use Laravel Framework in PHP

PHP remains one of the most popular programming languages, with a market share of more than 45%, according to 2021 data from Statista. In addition, it is used by more than 77% of the websites on the internet. 

Currently, Laravel is among the most trusted frameworks that run on PHP and are completely open source with a large community, which is why many developers opt for it. In this note, we will be discussing all about this software, including its main features and the best way to use it while coding in PHP. Let ‘s get started.

What is PHP Laravel Used for?

Well, Laravel is a PHP framework that is mainly used for server-side scripting. This tool saves developers time by automatically generating some of the most commonly used sections of code, so they don’t have to code everything from scratch.

Some of the things this framework handles include routing, HTML templates, and authentication. Before this framework, developers spent a lot of time building them from scratch.

Also, Laravel uses the Model-View-Controller architectural design pattern, which divides its code into three sections: model, view, and controller. From this, we can infer that it is one of the best PHP frameworks that anyone can start using, regardless of coding experience with their language. 

However, there are other alternatives, including React, View, and Angular, which run on JavaScript. Although if you’re going to use PHP for your back-end coding, Laravel is the best choice.

How Does Laravel Framework in PHP Work

Laravel is used for coding server-side websites by reusing existing components from different frameworks. Making the process of creating websites much faster. It has a wide range of functionalities that incorporate basic features of PHP frameworks like CodeIgniter and Yii.

No matter whether you are a beginner or an advanced PHP developer, Laravel will make your life much easier if you master how to use it. You see, this framework has many built-in libraries and modules that help enhance the functionality of your application without having to write every piece of code from scratch.

PHP Laravel Features

Laravel’s popularity is guaranteed thanks to the many features it has, and here we will see some of those main elements integrated into this framework.

1. Modularity

Laravel has more than 20 built-in libraries and modules that help enhance the functionality of your web application. Also, each of these modules is integrated with Composer’s dependency manager, which makes the upgrade process much easier.

2. Routing

With this tool, defining the routes of your web application will be much easier. Then, with much faster routing, it will also make it easier for you to extend the application to increase performance.

3. Configuration Management

Web apps built with Laravel run in different environments. In other words, there will be a constant change in their configuration. Here, Laravel provides a reliable and efficient approach to managing these configurations.

4. Email

If you want to add email functionality to your app, Laravel includes the email class, whose purpose is to send an email with rich content and attachments from your web application. All this can be integrated without having to write all this code from scratch.

5. Authentication

Every web application requires users to log in to give them a more personalized experience while they are using it. However, this requires the application to have authentication capabilities to give access to legitimate account owners.

For this, Laravel makes it easy to design authentication with its features, including registration, forgetting passwords, and sending password reminders.

6. Queues

This is another remarkable feature of this software. This feature makes it possible to implement functionalities such as sending mail to many users or a specific Cron job. It also makes it possible to complete tasks in an easier way without having to wait for the previous task to be completed.

7. Schema builder

This feature is what maintains the database definitions and schema in the PHP code. It also keeps track of changes made during database migrations.

8. Event and Command Bus

This is a feature that was introduced in Laravel 5.1. It facilitates command execution and event dispatching.

9. Testability

This is a very important feature in Laravel, as it has a high testing capability that allows developers to test through various use cases. This is a very useful feature as it facilitates the maintenance of the code according to the minimum requirements.

Why is Laravel PHP Framework the Best Choice?

1. Authorization and authentication are built-in

It makes it easy to add authorization and authentication capabilities without having to code them from scratch. Then, with just a few hand-crafted commands, your web application will be equipped with secure and protected authorization and authentication.

2. Supports multiple file systems

Supports local and cloud storage systems and allows seamless switching between the two. This framework has built in support for popular cloud storage platforms, including Amazon S3 and RackSpace Cloud Storage.

Therefore, you can easily switch between these storage systems while the API remains the same. This makes it possible to create a web application that can easily fetch files from both cloud and local storage systems.

3. Built-in console

It has a built-in console called Artisan that can be used to perform many tasks. Some of the uses of this console include publishing package assets, managing database migrations, initialization, and generating repetitive code for new drivers, models, and migrations. In turn, it allows implementing custom commands, which further extends the functionality of this console.

4. MVC support

This is perhaps one of the main reasons why Laravel is preferred by many developers, as it supports the architectural pattern based on model, view, and controller. 

Using MVC has many advantages, including orchestration of large web applications, support for asynchronous method invocation (AMI), a faster and easily modifiable development process, easy planning and maintenance, the ability to return unformatted data, and support for TTD (test-driven development).

5. Robust Templating engine

It has a built-in template engine called the Blade Template Engine, which can combine more than one template with a specific data model to produce resulting views. It also provides several control structures, including conditional statements and loops, integrated internally with their PHP counterparts.

6. Huge community support

Being the number one PHP framework means that Laravel has huge community support. If you encounter any problems while using this framework, finding solutions is quite easy. In fact, you can find endless tutorials on computer programming-based sites and YouTube, making it easy to get all the information you need to do something new.

7. Supports caching

If you’ve been studying how websites and web applications work for a while now, you should already know that one of the ways to increase performance is to cache some of the data that takes a long time to load.

Caching essentially means storing some of your website’s static data in the client’s browser so that it doesn’t have to reload the next time it tries to access your web application or website.

For that reason, Laravel comes with caching support out of the box, making it easy to implement in your web application. in addition to having other site optimization techniques built in, including memory usage reduction and database indexing.

What’s more, these performance optimization features are what make Laravel one of the best choices for building high-performance, SEO-friendly websites and web applications.

8. Easy third-party integration

One of the fastest and most reliable ways to improve the performance of your web application or website is by integrating third-party applications. Whether you want to integrate payment methods like Stripe or SEO tools like Yoast, Laravel’s clean APIs for integration make it easier than most frameworks out there.

9. Simplifies site maintenance

Chances are, at some point, your website or web application will need new features or bug fixes to improve and maintain good performance. Laravel’s features, such as optimized code, MVC architecture (which separates logic and presentation), and object-oriented programming principles, make it much easier to maintain a website.

In fact, these features make it much easier for any other developer to pick up the site and improve it without any significant challenge.

10. Reduces the website development costs

Laravel is open source, so you won’t have to pay a penny to use it. The only costs you will incur are hiring a good Laravel developer and subscription fees for hosting. Laravel also reduces development costs by reducing the time required to build the website.

Getting Started with PHP Laravel

Step: 1: Install PHP and Web Server

The software runs on PHP, so the first thing you will need before getting started is to clearly install a PHP and web server on your local machine. The best web servers we recommend installing on your machine include Apache and Nginx, two popular open-source web servers used by developers.

Step 2: Install composer, dependency manager, and database

After installation, you will need a composer, a dependency manager for PHP, and a database. Some of the best database options you can work with include MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQLite.

Step 3: Install Laravel

Once all the required dependencies are installed, the next step should be to install Laravel from Composer. To do that, open Composer and run the following command without the quotes: “global composer require laravel/installer.” To complete the Laravel installation, run this command: “new laravel blog.”

Next, the above command will create a new directory called “blog” and then install Laravel in it. There, the new directory will also have an .htaccess file. Make sure mod_rewrite is enabled to enable .htaccess files and point Apache to the directory.

To sum up…

Laravel is a very good PHP server-side scripting framework, ideal for both beginners and experienced developers. Moreover, it makes it easy for developers to create well-optimized, secure, and high-performing websites and web applications.

Likewise, installing and using this framework is also quite simple if you know what to do. So if you are looking for a reliable framework for PHP, Laravel is the best option available right now.