Routes in Laravel enable you to specify how HTTP requests should be handled. They define the endpoints of your application and determine which controllers and methods should be called to handle each request.
Here is how you can define and use routes in a Laravel application:
Define routes in routes/web.php or routes/api.php. In a fresh Laravel installation, you will find these files within the routes directory.
Basic route definition:
Route::get('/welcome', function () {
return view('welcome');
});
The above code defines a GET route for "/welcome". When this route is accessed, the specified closure function is called, and in this case, it returns a view called "welcome".
Route with a controller method:
Route::get('/users', 'UserController@index');
The above code defines a GET route for "/users" that calls the index method of the UserController class.
Different HTTP request methods:
Route::post('/users', 'UserController@store');
Route::put('/users/{id}', 'UserController@update');
Route::delete('/users/{id}', 'UserController@destroy');
These examples demonstrate routes for creating, updating, and deleting user records.
Route parameters:
Route::get('/users/{id}', 'UserController@show');
The above code defines a GET route for "/users/{id}" where id is a route parameter. This parameter can be accessed in the show method of the UserController class.
Named routes:
Route::get('/users/{id}', 'UserController@show')->name('users.show');
By adding ->name('users.show') to a route definition, you can give it a name for easy referencing in your application.
Once your routes are defined, you can use the php artisan route:list command to see a table showing all registered routes in your application.
To use routes, you simply need to visit the defined URLs in your browser or make API requests to the specified endpoints. Laravel's routing system will automatically handle these requests based on the defined routes.