How to Create and Use Custom Classes in Laravel 11

In the world of Laravel development, efficiency is the key. Moreover, one way to enhance developer productivity in Laravel is by utilizing custom classes. Additionally, these specialized classes offer a unique opportunity to streamline code, improve collaboration, and maximize efficiency. Furthermore, Laravel crafting efficient and maintainable applications hinges on understanding object-oriented programming (OOP) principles. Moreover, custom classes, a foundational element of OOP, serve as critical building blocks for structuring and organizing your Laravel codebase. By effectively leveraging custom classes in Laravel 11, you can achieve code reusability and enhance maintainability. It also, ultimately elevates the overall functionality of your Laravel applications. After the new release of Laravel 11, you can create a custom class using the command line itself. Today, In this blog post, we will discuss the Laravel 11 custom class creation concept and how you can use it effectively.

Overview of Custom Class in Laravel 11

The custom class serves as a fundamental building block in Laravel 11 development. Also, these classes allow developers to encapsulate logic, improve code organization, and promote project reusability. Therefore, this article aims to showcase how custom classes can be leveraged to enhance developer productivity and optimize the development workflow.

Creating Custom Class in Laravel 11

Laravel 11 introduced a few new artisan commands and one of them is to create a custom class. So, if you will navigate to the terminal and hit enter the below command.

php artisan make

Then you will be able to see the list of available commands belonging to the make namespace.

So, to create a class you can use this command by specifying the class name you want to create.

php artisan make:class User

You can also specify the folder name to create the class inside any folder. There is no default folder specified for generating the class. Therefore, you will have to pass the folder name in case you want to keep the class inside any folder.

php artisan make:class classes/User

The above command will create the class inside a folder named classes. So, if you will navigate to the created class, you will have the below basic skeleton of the class.

<?php

namespace App\Classes;

class User
{

    /**
     * Create a new class instance.
     */
    public function __construct()
    {
        //
    }

}

Now, let’s customize the class to make it more meaningful. Therefore, let’s customize the class.

Customize Class in Laravel 11

To make the class more utilizable and helpful, let’s define a property and method as a class will consist. As we know the class contains the property and method which can be used to hold some functionality.

<?php

namespace App\Classes;

class User
{

    public $name;

    /**
     * Create a new class instance.
     */
    public function __construct($name)
    {
        $this->name = $name;
    }

    public function getName() {
        return $this->name;
    }

}

Now, if you want to call this class function, then you require another class. So basically, we will be creating a controller and inside that controller, we will import this class. Thereafter, we will call the function inside that controller as well.

php artisan make:controller UserController

This will generate a controller class. So, inside this let’s add the below functionality.

<?php

namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use App\Classes\User; #import user class

class UserController extends Controller
{
      // Function : Get User
      public function getUser() {
           $user = new User('Admin');
           dd($user);
      }

}

Now, to execute this controller function, you will require a route. Hence, add a route in web.php and run this application.

<?php

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Route;
use App\Http\Controllers\UserController;

Route::get('/', [UserController::class, 'getUser');

Now, serve the application and navigate to the browser. Access this route to see the result.

Conclusion

Custom classes in Laravel 11 serve as the building blocks for well-structured and maintainable applications. By effectively leveraging classes, you achieve numerous benefits. Additionally, by using this approach, code becomes more organized and easier to navigate. Moreover, the complex functionalities are encapsulated within dedicated classes, fostering clarity and reducing clutter. Furthermore, frequently used code can be housed within reusable classes. Consequently, this eliminates duplication and saves you time and effort across different parts of your application. Ultimately, a well-structured class-based application is easier to maintain and update. Changes can be localized within specific classes, thus minimizing the risk of unintended side effects.