Laravel model directory and namespace - php

Question

I am starting out with Laravel 5 and as first order of business I want to move all my models into a folder called Models.
But how can I access those without specifying the namespace like in the following?:
...
class UserRolesTableSeeder extends Seeder {
public function run()
{
DB::table('user_roles')->delete();
App\Models\UserRoles::create(['name' => 'CREATE_USER']);
}
}

Answer 1

Go into your composer.json and add at the end of "autoload": "classmap" this line "app/models". This way you are telling laravel to autoload those clases. After that, run a composer update and it should work.
You can also create a service provider to access models without namespaces.
To create a service provider, here is what you have to do :
1) Create a file in your models directory and name it ModelsServiceProvider.php
2) Inside of it write this code
<?php
namespace App\Models;
use Illuminate\Support\ServiceProvider;
class ModelsServiceProvider extends ServiceProvider {
public function register()
{
$this->app->booting(function()
{
$loader = \Illuminate\Foundation\AliasLoader::getInstance();
$loader->alias('UserRoles', 'App\Models\UserRoles');
});
}
3) Go into app/config/app.php and under providers array add this line 'App\Models\ModelsServiceProvider'
You can also add directly your aliases for classes under the aliases array inside app/config/app.php.

Answer 2

Alternatively, you can just load your models into the global namespace like you were doing before! It's a bit scary to go against the docs but so far we haven't had any issues with it.
To make sure your models are still loaded, you just need to add the reference to your composer.json:
(assumes your namespace is App\Models)
"autoload": {
"classmap": [
...
"app/Models/"
],
...
"": [
"app/Models/"
]
be sure to run composer dump-autoload