Laravel 5 Global CRUD Class - php

Question

Before anyone asks, I've looked into CRUD generators and I know all about the Laravel Resource routes, but that's not exactly what I'm pulling for here.
What I'm looking to do is create one Route with a couple parameters, and one global class that (uses/extends?) the Model controller for simple CRUD operations. We have 20 or so Models and creating a Resource Controller for each table would be more time consuming than finding a way to create a global CRUD class to handle all "api" type calls and any ajax json request like a create / update / destroy statement.
So my question is what is the cleanest and best way to structure a class to handle all CRUD requests for every Model we have without having to have a resource controller for every model? I've tried researching this and can't seem to find any links except ones to CRUD generators and links describing the laravel Resource route.

Answer 1

The easiest way would be to do the following:
Add a route for your resource controller:
Route::resource('crud', 'CrudController', array('except' => array('create', 'edit')));
Create your crud controller
<?php namespace App\Http\Controllers;
use Illuminate\Routing\Controller;
use App\Models\User;
use App\Models\Product;
use Input;
class CrudController extends Controller
{
const MODEL_KEY = 'model';
protected $modelsMapping = [
'user' => User::class,
'product' => Product::class
];
protected function getModel() {
$modelKey = Input::get(static::MODEL_KEY);
if (array_key_exists($modelKey, $this->modelsMapping)) {
return $this->modelsMapping[$modelKey];
}
throw new \InvalidArgumentException('Invalid model');
}
public function index()
{
$model = $this->getModel();
return $model::all();
}
public function store()
{
$model = $this->getModel();
return $model::create(array_except(Input::all(), static::MODEL_KEY));
}
public function show($id)
{
$model = $this->getModel();
return $model::findOrFail($id);
}
public function update($id)
{
$model = $this->getModel();
$object = $model::findOrFail($id);
return $object->update(array_except(Input::all(), static::MODEL_KEY));
}
public function destroy($id)
{
$model = $this->getModel();
return $model::remove($id);
}
}
Use your new controller :) You have to pass the model parameter that will contain the model key - it must be one of the allowed models in the whitelist. E.g. if you want to get a User with id=5 do
GET /crud/5?model=user
Please keep in mind that it's as simple as possible, you might need to make the code more sophisticated to match your needs.
Please also keep in mind that this code has not been tested - let me know if you see any typos or have some other issues. I'll be more than happy to get it running for you.

Answer 2

Unless you want to implement CRUD manually, consider to integrate a ready-made datagrid such as phpGrid.
Check out integration walkthrough: http://phpgrid.com/example/phpgrid-laravel-5-twitter-bootstrap-3-integration/ No models are required and the code is minimum. It can almost do anything.
A basic working CRUD:
// in a controller
public function index()
{
$dg = new \C_DataGrid("SELECT * FROM orders", "orderNumber", "orders");
$dg->enable_edit("FORM", "CRUD");
$dg->display(false);
$grid = $dg -> get_display(true);
return view('dashboard', ['grid' => $grid]);
}

Answer 3

You need one generic class for all CRUD operations and there are many ways to achieve that and one rule for all may not fit but you may try the approach that I'm going to describe now. This is an abstract idea, you need to implement it, so at first, think the URI for all CRUD operations. In this case you must follow a convention and it could be something like this:
example.com/user/{id?} // get all or one by id (if id is available in the URI)
example.com/user/create // Show an empty form
example.com/user/edit/10 // Show a form populated with User model
example.com/user/save // Create a new User
example.com/user/save/10 // Update an existing User
example.com/user/delete/10 // Delete an existing User
In ths case the user could be something else to specify the name of the model for example, example.com/product/create and keeping that on mind, you need to declare routes as given below:
Route::get('/{model}/{id?}', 'CrudController#read');
Route::get('/{model}/create', 'CrudController#create');
Route::get('/{model}/edit/{id}', 'CrudController#edit');
Route::post('/{model}/save/{id?}', 'CrudController#save');
Route::post('/{model}/delete/{id}', 'CrudController#delete');
Now, in your app\Providers\RouteServiceProvider.php file modify the boot method and make it look like this:
public function boot(Router $router)
{
$model = null;
$router->bind('model', function($modelName) use (&$model, &$router)
{
$model = app('\App\User\\'.ucfirst($modelName));
if($model)
{
if($id = $router->input('id'))
{
$model = $model->find($id);
}
return $model ?: abort(404);
}
});
parent::boot($router);
}
Then declare your CrudController as given below:
class CrudController extends Controller
{
protected $request = null;
public function __construct(Request $request)
{
$this->request = $request;
}
public function read($model)
{
return $model->exists ? $model : $model->all();
}
// Show either an empty form or a form
// populated with the given model atts
public function createOrEdit($model)
{
$classNameArray = explode('\\', get_class($model));
$className = strtolower(array_pop($classNameArray));
$view = view($className . '.form');
$view->formAction = "$className/save";
if(is_object($model) && $model->exists)
{
$view->model = $model;
$view->formAction .= "/{$model->id}";
}
return $view;
}
public function save($model)
{
// Validation required so do it
// Make sure each Model has $fillable specified
return $this->model->fill($this->request)->save();
}
public function delete($model)
{
return $this->model->delete();
}
}
Since same form is used to creating and updating a model, use something like this to create a form:
<form action="{{url($formAction)}}" method="POST">
<input
type="text"
class="form-control"
name="first_name" value="{{old('first_name', #$model->first_name)}}"
/>
<input type="Submit" value="Submit" />
{!!csrf_field()!!}
</form>
Remember that, each form should be in a directory corresponding to the model, for user add/edit, form should be in views/user/form.blade.php and for product model use views/product/form.blade.php and so on.
This will work and don't forget to add validation before saving a model and validation could be done inside the model using model events or however you want. This is just an idea but probably not the best way to it.