Add a Controller to a Laravel 5 Package

Question

Lately, I've been creating only models for my L5 packages, but now I'd like to try and introduce a Controller as well. I've been following this but I always get the error "Class StatController does not exist".

Folder structure

/src
    routes.php
    /Controllers
        StatController.php

StatController.php

<?php namespace Enchance\Sentrysetup\Controllers;

use App\Http\Controllers\Controller;

class StatController extends Controller {

    public function index() {
        return 'Moot.';
    }

}

Service provider

public function register()
{
    // Can't get this to work
    include __DIR__.'/routes.php';
    $this->app->make('Enchance\Sentrysetup\Controllers\StatController');

    $this->app['sentrysetup'] = $this->app->share(function($app) {
        return new Sentrysetup;
    });
}

routes.php

Route::get('slap', 'StatController@index');

Does anyone have an alternate way of assigning a Controller to a L5 package?

Answer 1

You don't need to call $this->app->make() on your controllers. Controllers are resolved by Laravel's IoC automatically (meaning that Laravel creates / instantiates controllers automatically that are tied to routes).

Require your routes in the boot() method of your packages service provider:

public function boot()
{
    require __DIR__.'/routes.php';     
}

And inside your routes.php file:

Route::group(['namespace' => 'Enchance\Sentrysetup\Controllers'], function()
{
    Route::get('slap', ['uses' => 'StatController@index']);
})

Also, just a tip. You should PascalCase your namespaces:

Enchance\SentrySetup\Controllers

Note the capital S in setup

The boot() method should be used to register your routes because when Laravel starts up, it goes through each service provider in your config/app.php file, creates them, calls the register() method (to insert/add any dependencies that the service provider "provides" into Laravel's singleton / IoC container).

Think of Laravel's container as simply a big key => value array. Where the "key" is the name of the dependency (such as config), and the "value" is a closure (function () {}) that is called to create the dependency:

// Exists as a property inside the Container:
$bindings = [
    "config" => function () {
        // Create the application configuration.
    }
];

// Create the app configuration.
$config = $bindings['config']();

// Create the app configuration (Laravel).
$config = app()->make('config');

Once Laravel has registered each provider, it then goes through them again and calls the boot() method. This ensures that any dependencies that have been registered (inside of the register() method of all of your application service providers) is available in the boot() method, ready to be used.

The Service Provider Boot Method - Laravel Docs

Answer 2

Use this in controller function:

use Illuminate\Routing\Controller;

Like:

namespace Enchance\Sentrysetup\Controllers;

use Illuminate\Routing\Controller;

class StatController extends Controller {

    public function index() {
        return 'Moot.';
    }

}

And in controller:

Route::group(['namespace' => 'Enchance\Sentrysetup\Controllers'], function()
{
    Route::get('slap', 'StatController@index');
});

In boot function:

public function boot()
{
    require __DIR__.'/routes.php';     
}