Laravel 5 api route - php

Question

Brief:
Actually, I'm little bit confused while using Laravel api route file.
Question:
If I need to access the data of my web site in other platform (like android app) that is made using laravel, then should I create a different route in api.php file?
If yes then I will be declaring two routes and controllers for each request, first in web.php and second in api.php. Is it correct?
Basically, I want to ask that how I can make an api, so that I can access the data in website as well as in other platforms?
I was searching for a good tutorial for this, but I didn't got a good one.

Answer 1

Ideally the API routes and Web routes should be completely different but if you want it to be same then instead of defining routes in different file you can add routes only in web.php and add a special parameter from your client and in controller if you are getting the parameter then return the JSON Object or else return the view.
Eg.
web.php
Route::get('getUsers','UserController#getUsers');
UserController.php
...
public function getUsers(Request $request)
{
...
if ($request->has('api')) {
return $users; //API Route (Laravel will by Default return the JSON Response no need to do json_encode)
}
return view('pages.user_list'); //Normal Routes hence returning View
}
...
Requests
Normal Request
<Yourdomain>/getUsers
API Request
<Yourdomain>/getUsers?api=true
I hope that helped...

Answer 2

Write your api routes in api.php and web routes in web.php.
The Api routes always have the name api in the routes thus you can differentiate the routes., I mentioned here because as #Akshay Khale mentioned an example with query parameter.
if you want to use the same controller for both API and Web, Api Requests always have the Header Content-Type : Json and "Accept":"application/json" so in your controller you can do it as below.
public function getUsers(Request $request)
{
...
if ($request->wantsJson()) {
return response()->json($users, 200); //here why we are extending response object because using json() method you can send the status code with the response.
}
return view('pages.user_list'); //Normal Routes hence returning View
}

Answer 3

for the laravel 5.6 and above the above answers won't work for me , so here is my 2 cents.
I have put the routes in web.php and api.php and normal no any magic tricks .
public function getUsers(Request $request)
{
....
if( $request->is('api/*')){
...
return response()->json($user_data, 200);
}
...
return view('users', ['users_data'=>$user_data]);
}
It will return json output for
127.0.0.1:8000/api/users
and normal view in html for
127.0.0.1:8000/users