Laravel "Controller does not exsist" while route is correct - php

Question

I am trying to use ajax smart search,
http://maxoffsky.com/code-blog/laravel-shop-tutorial-3-implementing-smart-search/
But my application can not find the controller I used from the tutorial above.
This is the error i get:
Class App\Http\Controllers\Api\ApiSearchController does not exist
After googling this error message I found out that it is caused by an incorrect route. But I believe I set my routes correctly.
This is my route:
Route::get('api/search', 'Api\ApiSearchController#index');
And here is my controller:
<?php namespace App\Http\Controllers;
use App\Http\Controllers\Base\Controller;
class ApiSearchController extends Controller {
public function appendValue($data, $type, $element)
{
// operate on the item passed by reference, adding the element and type
foreach ($data as $key => & $item) {
$item[$element] = $type;
}
return $data;
}
public function appendURL($data, $prefix)
{
// operate on the item passed by reference, adding the url based on slug
foreach ($data as $key => & $item) {
$item['url'] = url($prefix.'/'.$item['slug']);
}
return $data;
}
public function index()
{
$query = e(Input::get('q',''));
if(!$query && $query == '') return Response::json(array(), 400);
$products = Product::where('published', true)
->where('name','like','%'.$query.'%')
->orderBy('name','asc')
->take(5)
->get(array('slug','name','icon'))->toArray();
$categories = Category::where('name','like','%'.$query.'%')
->has('products')
->take(5)
->get(array('slug', 'name'))
->toArray();
// Data normalization
$categories = $this->appendValue($categories, url('img/icons/category-icon.png'),'icon');
$products = $this->appendURL($products, 'products');
$categories = $this->appendURL($categories, 'categories');
// Add type of data to each item of each set of results
$products = $this->appendValue($products, 'product', 'class');
$categories = $this->appendValue($categories, 'category', 'class');
// Merge all data into one array
$data = array_merge($products, $categories);
return Response::json(array(
'data'=>$data
));
}
}

Answer 1

I think the namespace you specified isn't the one expected :
Class App\Http\Controllers\Api\ApiSearchController does not exist
doesn't match :
<?php namespace App\Http\Controllers;