How to separate controller method in Laravel? - php

Question

I start with Laravel, I write API. I have a method in TestController that checks if the student has correctly inserted data and has access to the exam solution. I do not think it's a good idea to have the whole method in the controller, but I have no idea how to separate it. I think about politics, but I have to have several models for one policy, maybe I can try to put part of the method on AuthorizeStudentRequest or try it in a different way? Of course, now I am returning 200 with the message, but I have to return 422 or another code with errors, but I have not done it because of my problem.
public function authorizeStudent(AuthorizeStudentRequest $request)
{
$hash = $request->input('hash');
$token = $request->input('token');
$exam = Exam::where([['hash', $hash], ['token', $token]])->first();
if($exam == null)
return ['message' => 'Exam does not exist.'];
$user = $exam->user_id;
$studentFirstname = $request->input('firstname');
$studentLastname = $request->input('lastname');
$student = Student::where([
['firstname', $studentFirstname],
['lastname', $studentLastname],
['user_id', $user]
])->first();
if($student == null)
return ['message' => 'Student does not exist.'];
$classroom = Classroom::where([
['name', $classroomName],
['user_id', $user]
])->first();
if($classroom == null)
return ['message' => 'Classroom does not exist.'];
if($student->classroom_id != $classroom->id)
return ['message' => 'Student is not in classroom.'];
if($exam->classrooms()->where(['classroom_id', $classroom->id], ['access', 1])->first() == null)
return ['message' => 'Class does not access to exam yet.'];
}

Answer 1

I would suggest you rather pass the primary keys of the selected $exam, $student and $classroom models to your controller from the form and validate whether they exist in the corresponding tables, rather than having to check their existence using a bunch of different columns.
If you pass the primary keys, you could use the 'exists' validation rule to check if they exist. For example, in your AuthorizeStudentRequest class you could have the following function:
public function rules()
{
return [
'exam_id' => 'required|exists:exams',
'student_id' => 'required|exists:students',
'classroom_id' => 'required|exists:classrooms',
];
}
Otherwise, if you really need to use the different columns to check the existence of the exam, student and classroom, you could create custom validation rules and use them in your AuthorizeStudentRequest class. For example, create a custom validation rule that checks whether the exam exists as follows:
$php artisan make:rule ExamExists
class ExamExists implements Rule
{
private $token;
private $hash;
public function __construct($token, $hash)
{
$this->token = $token;
$this->hash = $hash;
}
public function passes($attribute, $value)
{
return Exam::where([['hash', $hash], ['token', $token]])->count() > 0;
}
}
And then you can use the custom validation rule in your request as follows:
public function rules()
{
return [
'hash' => ['required', new ExamExists($this->hash, $this->token)],
... other validation rules ...
]
}
For checking whether a student has access to a classroom or a class has access to an exam, you could use policies.

Answer 2

API resources present a way to easily transform our models into JSON responses. It acts as a transformation layer that sits between our Eloquent models and the JSON responses that are actually returned by our API. API resources is made of two entities: a resource class and a resource collection. A resource class represents a single model that needs to be transformed into a JSON structure, while a resource collection is used for transforming collections of models into a JSON structure.
Both the resource class and the resource collection can be created using artisan commands:
// create a resource class
$ php artisan make:resource UserResource
// create a resource collection using either of the two commands
$ php artisan make:resource Users --collection
$ php artisan make:resource UserCollection
Before diving into all of the options available to you when writing resources, let's first take a high-level look at how resources are used within Laravel. A resource class represents a single model that needs to be transformed into a JSON structure. For example, here is a simple User resource class:
public function toArray($request)
{
return [
'id' => $this->id,
'name' => $this->name,
'email' => $this->email,
'created_at' => $this->created_at,
'updated_at' => $this->updated_at,
];
}
Every resource class defines a toArray method which returns the array of attributes that should be converted to JSON when sending the response. Notice that we can access model properties directly from the $this variable. More information here
https://laravel.com/docs/5.7/eloquent-resources