Controller methods in Laravel - php

Question

I was developing codeigniter app for last 2 years and since i started my mvc pattern styling from codeigniter itself, now i'm not a heavy command line user so at first i did had some learning curve with codeigniter but i crossed it and started developing apps with code igniter because we don't need to configure a lot and everything was inside one zip file but now as unfortunately codeigniter is dead and i'm just one person in my team i have to rely on other third party tools which are trusted by others so i decided to switch to laravel, now at starting it was way way tough to migrate from codeigniter because composer and every other stuff, but somehow i crossed that too, but i'm now confused with routing and other stuff and i've tried many tutorials but i'm still not able to see how can i migrate from application where i'm managing students, where they can change email, change phone number updated stuff, in codeigniter it was easy but i don't how to approach this stuff in routing of laravel, now this question sounds way to dumb for community who is already working on laravel but if you see from my point of view it is going to affect my bread and butter. This is how i use to approach in codeigniter
class Student extends CI_Controller{
// usual piece of code of constructor
function update_email()
{
// piece of code to update email
}
}
but now with laravel routing system and all i've no idea how to approach this a resource controller looks like this
<?php
class StudentController extends \BaseController {
/**
* Display a listing of the resource.
*
* #return Response
*/
public function index()
{
}
/**
* Show the form for creating a new resource.
*
* #return Response
*/
public function create()
{
//
}
/**
* Store a newly created resource in storage.
*
* #return Response
*/
public function store()
{
//
}
/**
* Display the specified resource.
*
* #param int $id
* #return Response
*/
public function show($id)
{
//
}
/**
* Show the form for editing the specified resource.
*
* #param int $id
* #return Response
*/
public function edit($id)
{
//
}
/**
* Update the specified resource in storage.
*
* #param int $id
* #return Response
*/
public function update($id)
{
//
}
/**
* Remove the specified resource from storage.
*
* #param int $id
* #return Response
*/
public function destroy($id)
{
//
}
}
now every part is okay but how can i approach things where i've to update only email address or only phone number and stuff

Answer 1

Actually, in your question you have a RESTful controller which could be confusing for you at this time because you are new to Laravel and used CI, so probably you are very so much used with automating URL mapping without route. In this case, for ease, I suggest you to use a plain controller and that is almost same thing that you've did in CI but here in Laravel you have to declare route for every action. So, just create two routes like these:
Rouite::get('something/edit/{id}', array('uses' => 'StudentController#edit', 'as' => 'edit.record'));
Rouite::post('something/update/{id}', array('uses' => 'StudentController#update', 'as' => 'update.record'));
Then create a class/Controller and declare these methods:
class StudentController extends baseController {
// URL: http://example.com/something/edit/10 and it'll listen to GET request
public function edit($id) {
// $record = Load the record from database using the $id/10
// retuen View::make('editform')->with('record', $record);
}
// URL: http://example.com/something/update/10 and it'll listen to POST request
public function update($id) {
// Update the record using the $id/10
}
}
In your form, you need to use http://example.com/something/update/10 as action and you may use route('update.record') or url('something/update/10') to generate the action in the form. Read more on Laravel Documentation.

Answer 2

What you have created (or maybe rather generated) here is called Restful controller. It is some 'standard way' to manage CRUD actions (create/read/update/delete). However there is no need to do it this way. You can add in your controller whatever methods you want and not use Restful Controllers at all. That's your choice.
You can create in your function new method
function updateEmail()
{
// do here whatever you want
}
and in your routes.php file add new route:
Route::match(array('GET', 'POST'), '/changegemail', 'StudentController#updateEmail');
Now you can write your code for this method and it will work.