Call method of another controller in laravel - php

Question

I have to call the method of another controller.
I use following code to make a call.
app('App\Http\Controllers\ApiUserController')->getList();
This is working fine.
But I want to try using use function so that I dont have to repeat all line
use App\Http\Controllers\ApiUserController;
class MyMethods
{
public function index()
{
app('ApiUserController')->getList()
Did I made some mistake here?

Answer 1

Instead of using app function, you will need to go through OOP way like so:
use App\Http\Controllers\ApiUserController;
class MyMethods
{
public function index()
{
$apiUserController = new ApiUserController();
$apiUserController->getList();
However, as many people have mentioned here, it is not really the best practice to call a method of one controller from the another.
So if I were at your place, I would create a helper, register its alias in config and use that helper to get the list in both places.
I hope it helps

Answer 2

Calling controller from other controller or other objects is not a good practice. Here is a good article explaining why. Also "fat" controllers is less preferable than "thin" controllers.
You should define a service layer object with common logic and use it. Create a service object and register it with one of service providers.
namespace App\Providers;
use Illuminate\Support\ServiceProvider;
use App\Services\YourUserService;
class AppServiceProvider extends ServiceProvider
{
public function register()
{
$this->app->singleton(YourUserService::class);
}
}
After that you can use your service in DI style.
use App\Services\YourUserService;
class MyMethods
{
protected $userService;
public function __construct(YourUserService $userService)
{
$this->userService = $userService;
}
public function index()
{
$this->userService->foo();
}
}
Why should I use dependency injection?

Answer 3

I agree with the answer Learner has given above, however, I wouldn't recommend it in terms of code organisation and testability.
Looking at the code, I can see that you need to get list of users and thats why you have to call the api user controller from another controller. However, you can easily extract the logic out to a service or even a trait.
if you were to use a trait then you could do some thing like following,
trait ApiUser {
public function getList()
{
// get the list for users from api
}
}
//Then you can simply use this trait any where you want,
class SomeController
{
// correct namespace for ApiUser trait
use ApiUser;
}
Another way of doing it, which i love to use again and again depending on the scenario; is to stick with the principle of coding to interface not to implementation. That would be some thing like follow.
interface ApiUserInterface
{
public function getList();
}
class ApiUser implements ApiUserInterface
{
public function getList()
{
// logic to get users from api
}
}
Make sure that when application requires the interface, it knows where to find its implementation. If you using Laravel, then you could register your interface to class in AppServiceProvider
Once that's done, you can use this service any where you want as a contract.
class OneController
{
protected $apiUserContract;
public function __construct(ApiUserInterface $apiUserContract)
{
$this->apiUserContract = $apiUserContract;
}
public function index()
{
// You can retrieve the list of the contract
$this->apiUserContract->getList();
}
}
// you could also just typehint the contact in method without requiring
// it in constructor and it will get resolved out of IOC i.e. container
class AnotherController
{
public function index(ApiUserInterface $apiUserContract)
{
// You can retrieve the list of the contract
$apiUserContract->getList();
}
}
Let me know if you need further explanation and hope it helps