Laravel Basics: Routing and Controllers

Eloquent: Your First Model

2 min read Last updated 46 minutes ago

Eloquent is Laravel's ORM. Each model maps to a database table, and each instance to a row.

Creating a model with migration

bash

php artisan make:model Post -m

This creates app/Models/Post.php and a migration.

The model

php

<?php

namespace App\Models;

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Relations\BelongsTo;

class Post extends Model
{
    protected $fillable = ['title', 'content', 'user_id'];

    public function user(): BelongsTo
    {
        return $this->belongsTo(User::class);
    }
}

Mass assignment

Always define $fillable (or $guarded) so users can't assign columns they shouldn't.

The migration

php

Schema::create('posts', function (Blueprint $table) {
    $table->id();
    $table->foreignId('user_id')->constrained()->cascadeOnDelete();
    $table->string('title');
    $table->text('content');
    $table->timestamps();
});

bash

php artisan migrate

Querying

php

$posts = Post::where('title', 'like', '%Laravel%')
    ->latest()
    ->paginate(10);

$post = Post::findOrFail(1);   // 404 if missing

$recent = Post::with('user')   // eager load to avoid N+1
    ->orderByDesc('created_at')
    ->take(5)
    ->get();

In the controller

php

public function index()
{
    $posts = Post::with('user')->latest()->paginate(10);

    return view('posts.index', ['posts' => $posts]);
}

Blade pagination

blade

@foreach ($posts as $post)
    <article>
        <h2>{{ $post->title }}</h2>
        <p>By {{ $post->user->name }}</p>
    </article>
@endforeach

{{ $posts->links() }}

✓

Avoid the N+1 problem

Without with('user'), listing 10 posts fires 11 queries. Eager loading reduces it to 2. This one habit makes Laravel apps dramatically faster.

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