Build Simple RESTful API with Laravel

Representational state transfer (REST) is a software structure used for creating web services. The web services that fulfill the REST architecture is called RESTful web services. RESTful web services are used access and manipulate textual representation of web resources by predefined set of stateless operations.

Laravel is a popular PHP framework that provides an easy to create REST API with authentication. So if you’re looking for solution to create your own RESTful API with Laravel, then you’r here at the right place. In this tutorial you will learn how to create simple REST API with Laravel framework.

We will cover this tutorial step by step to create REST API with CRUD (create, read, update, delete) operations using Laravel with example.

Also, read:

let’s proceed to build simple REST API with Laravel framework. We will have following file structure for this project.

laravel_restful_api
- app
  - User.php
  - Product.php
  - Http
    - Controllers
      - API
        
        BaseController.php
        
        RegisterController.php
        
        ProductController.php
    - Resources
      - Product.php
  - Providers
    - AuthServiceProvider.php
- config
  - auth.php
- Routes
  - api.php

Step1: Install and Create Laravel Project

First we will install latest Laravel and create project laravel_restful_api. We need to run following command with composure to install and create the Laravel project. If you have not installed composure, then you need to install composure before run this command.

composer create-project — prefer-dist laravel/laravel laravel_restful_api

Step2: Install Laravel Passport

As the latest Laravel recommends Laravel Passport to handle API authentication for production applications. It’s not so hard. We will install the Laravel passport using below command.

composer require laravel/passport

After installation, we need to get default migration for creating new passport tables into database. So we will run the below command for this.

php artisan migrate

We will run below command to create the encryption keys needed to generate secure access tokens.

php artisan passport:install

Step3: Laravel Passport Configuration

We will create app/User.php models to map the classes to underlying database tables.

<?php

namespace App;

use Illuminate\Contracts\Auth\MustVerifyEmail;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Auth\User as Authenticatable;
use Illuminate\Notifications\Notifiable;
use Laravel\Passport\HasApiTokens;

class User extends Authenticatable
{
    use Notifiable, HasApiTokens;

    /**
     * The attributes that are mass assignable.
     *
     * @var array
     */
    protected $fillable = [
        'name', 'email', 'password',
    ];

    /**
     * The attributes that should be hidden for arrays.
     *
     * @var array
     */
    protected $hidden = [
        'password', 'remember_token',
    ];

    /**
     * The attributes that should be cast to native types.
     *
     * @var array
     */
    protected $casts = [
        'email_verified_at' => 'datetime',
    ];
}

We will create app/Providers/AppServiceProvider.php for register and run services for the application,

<?php

namespace App\Providers;

use Illuminate\Foundation\Support\Providers\AuthServiceProvider as ServiceProvider;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Gate;
use Laravel\Passport\Passport;

class AuthServiceProvider extends ServiceProvider
{
    /**
     * The policy mappings for the application.
     *
     * @var array
     */
    protected $policies = [
         'App\Model' => 'App\Policies\ModelPolicy',
    ];

    /**
     * Register any authentication / authorization services.
     *
     * @return void
     */
    public function boot()
    {
        $this->registerPolicies();

    }
}

We will also make changes into config/auth.php, which contains authentication configuration options for your Laravel instance.

<?php

return [
   
    'guards' => [
        'web' => [
            'driver' => 'session',
            'provider' => 'users',
        ],
        'api' => [
            'driver' => 'passport',
            'provider' => 'users',
        ],
    ],
   
]

Step4: Add Product Table

We will create migraton for products table by running PHP artisan command.

php artisan make:migration create_products_table

Then we will add following code to database/migrations products create PHP file to create products table.

<?php

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


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


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

Then we will run the following command to run the migration.

php artisan migrate

Step5: Create Product Model

Now we will create product model app/Product.php for product table.

<?php

namespace App;


use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;


class Product extends Model
{
    /**
     * The attributes that are mass assignable.
     *
     * @var array
     */
    protected $fillable = [
        'name', 'detail'
    ];
}

Step6: Create Controller Files

We will create Controllers/API directory in controllers and create controllers. First we will create app/Http/Controllers/API/BaseController.php for send JSON response and sending errors if any.

<?php

namespace App\Http\Controllers\API;


use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use App\Http\Controllers\Controller as Controller;


class BaseController extends Controller
{
    /**
     * success response method.
     *
     * @return \Illuminate\Http\Response
     */
    public function sendResponse($result, $message)
    {
    	$response = [
            'success' => true,
            'data'    => $result,
            'message' => $message,
        ];


        return response()->json($response, 200);
    }


    /**
     * return error response.
     *
     * @return \Illuminate\Http\Response
     */
    public function sendError($error, $errorMessages = [], $code = 404)
    {
    	$response = [
            'success' => false,
            'message' => $error,
        ];


        if(!empty($errorMessages)){
            $response['data'] = $errorMessages;
        }


        return response()->json($response, $code);
    }
}

We will create app/Http/Controllers/API/RegisterController.php controllers for handling user register and login for API authentication.

<?php

namespace App\Http\Controllers\API;

use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use App\Http\Controllers\API\BaseController as BaseController;
use App\User;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Auth;
use Validator;

class RegisterController extends BaseController
{
    /**
     * Register api
     *
     * @return \Illuminate\Http\Response
     */
    public function register(Request $request)
    {
        $validator = Validator::make($request->all(), [
            'name' => 'required',
            'email' => 'required|email',
            'password' => 'required',
            'c_password' => 'required|same:password',
        ]);

        if($validator->fails()){
            return $this->sendError('Validation Error.', $validator->errors());       
        }

        $input = $request->all();
        $input['password'] = bcrypt($input['password']);
        $user = User::create($input);
        $success['token'] =  $user->createToken('MyApp')->accessToken;
        $success['name'] =  $user->name;

        return $this->sendResponse($success, 'User register successfully.');
    }

    /**
     * Login api
     *
     * @return \Illuminate\Http\Response
     */
    public function login(Request $request)
    {
        if(Auth::attempt(['email' => $request->email, 'password' => $request->password])){ 
            $user = Auth::user(); 
            $success['token'] =  $user->createToken('MyApp')-> accessToken; 
            $success['name'] =  $user->name;

            return $this->sendResponse($success, 'User login successfully.');
        } 
        else{ 
            return $this->sendError('Unauthorised.', ['error'=>'Unauthorised']);
        } 
    }
}

We will create app/Http/Controllers/API/ProductController.php controllers for handling API product CRUD operation.

<?php

namespace App\Http\Controllers\API;

use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use App\Http\Controllers\API\BaseController as BaseController;
use App\Product;
use Validator;
use App\Http\Resources\Product as ProductResource;

class ProductController extends BaseController
{
    /**
     * Display a listing of the resource.
     *
     * @return \Illuminate\Http\Response
     */
    public function index()
    {
        $products = Product::all();

        return $this->sendResponse(ProductResource::collection($products), 'Products retrieved successfully.');
    }

    /**
     * Store a newly created resource in storage.
     *
     * @param  \Illuminate\Http\Request  $request
     * @return \Illuminate\Http\Response
     */
    public function store(Request $request)
    {
        $input = $request->all();


        $validator = Validator::make($input, [
            'name' => 'required',
            'detail' => 'required'
        ]);

        if($validator->fails()){
            return $this->sendError('Validation Error.', $validator->errors());       
        }

        $product = Product::create($input);

        return $this->sendResponse(new ProductResource($product), 'Product created successfully.');
    }


    /**
     * Display the specified resource.
     *
     * @param  int  $id
     * @return \Illuminate\Http\Response
     */
    public function show($id)
    {
        $product = Product::find($id);

        if (is_null($product)) {
            return $this->sendError('Product not found.');
        }

        return $this->sendResponse(new ProductResource($product), 'Product retrieved successfully.');
    }


    /**
     * Update the specified resource in storage.
     *
     * @param  \Illuminate\Http\Request  $request
     * @param  int  $id
     * @return \Illuminate\Http\Response
     */
    public function update(Request $request, Product $product)
    {
        $input = $request->all();

        $validator = Validator::make($input, [
            'name' => 'required',
            'detail' => 'required'
        ]);

        if($validator->fails()){
            return $this->sendError('Validation Error.', $validator->errors());       
        }

        $product->name = $input['name'];
        $product->detail = $input['detail'];
        $product->save();

        return $this->sendResponse(new ProductResource($product), 'Product updated successfully.');
    }


    /**
     * Remove the specified resource from storage.
     *
     * @param  int  $id
     * @return \Illuminate\Http\Response
     */
    public function destroy(Product $product)
    {
        $product->delete();

        return $this->sendResponse([], 'Product deleted successfully.');
    }
}

Step7: Use Eloquent API Resources

Now we will use the Eloquent API resources with API to make response layout same as of model object. We need to create it using following command.

php artisan make:resource Product

When we run the above command, a new file created at app/Http/Resources/Product.php with following code.

<?php

namespace App\Http\Resources;

use Illuminate\Http\Resources\Json\JsonResource;

class Product extends JsonResource
{
    /**
     * Transform the resource into an array.
     *
     * @param  \Illuminate\Http\Request  $request
     * @return array
     */
    public function toArray($request)
    {
        return [
            'id' => $this->id,
            'name' => $this->name,
            'detail' => $this->detail,
            'created_at' => $this->created_at->format('d/m/Y'),
            'updated_at' => $this->updated_at->format('d/m/Y'),
        ];
    }
}