Laravel namespaces class not found - php

Question

I am newbie to Laravel namespaces.
I am trying to do something like this:
namespace App\Controllers; // when I remove this line, everything works fine... I need to include this
class HomeController extends BaseController {
protected $layout = "layouts.main";
public function __construct() {
// some stuff here
}
/**
* Home page.
* #return View
*/
public function getHome() {
// Show the page
$this->layout->content = View::make('home');
}
}
But I am having this weird error,
Class HomeController does not exist
Here is some of my composer.json stuff,
"autoload": {
"classmap": [
"app/commands",
"app/controllers",
"app/libraries",
"app/models",
"app/database/migrations",
"app/database/seeds",
]
},
I have also executed,
composer dump-autoload
While I am routing something like this,
# Default
Route::get('/', array('as' => 'home', 'uses' => 'HomeController#getHome'));

Answer 1

Here's one common case where this error can occur:
Imagine you're defining a route using that class:
Route::get('/home', 'HomeController#getIndex');
The Laravel core is going to pass that string ('HomeController#getIndex') to some method(s) deep in the bowels of the routing class, parse it, instantiate HomeController, and call getIndex. Does that code include a use App\Controllers directive? Not likely, since this is something you've created. Basically, wherever that HomeController class is used (and I have no idea where it is), the PHP interpreter is not going to know where that class comes from.
The solution is to use the fully-qualified class name. That means including the full namespace in the string, like so:
Route::get('/home', '\App\Controller\HomeController#getIndex');
Now when Laravel tries to instantiate the class, it has everything it needs to find it.
I don't know for sure if this is the problem - you need to show us the code where the error occurs - but this is one possibility.

Answer 2

Are you typing use App\Controllers\HomeController in the file where you're trying to use it? This essentially includes it.

Answer 3

You don't use namespaces for Controllers in app/controllers.
HomeController extends BaseController which extends Controller in the framework.
You might want to use namespaces if you are including custom libraries into the framework. /app/libraries for example.
As long as your routes.php has some url to get to a home controller method, it should work.
Route::get('/home', 'HomeController#index');
HomeController.php:
class HomeController extends BaseController {
private $myVar;
public function __construct() {
// some stuff here
}
public function index(){
return View::make('home');
}
}