Laravel Helper class

Programming is made more systematic with a large number of helper classes in Laravel. Examples are the Arr::last, Arr::add, Arr::get, asset, route, secure_url, url, dd, collect, env)

Lots of documentations are available at Laravel (see Laravel 7). 

Example of usage

Helper url( )

Returns a fully qualified URL

$url = url('user/profile');

Creating your first helper class

The following illustrates a function named "courier" that will be available to all controllers. It typically returns data in a predefined format.

Step 1: Create a helper file in app/Helpers with the name myHelpers.php

/app/Helpers/myHelpers.php

Step 2: Create the function in the file myHelpers.php

<?php

use Carbon\Carbon;

if (! function_exists('courier')) {

function courier($status, $message, $data){

$now = carbon::now();

$status = $status??0;

$package = [

'status'=>$status,

'message'=>$message,

'data'=>$data,

'timestamp'=>$now,

];

return $package;

}

}

Step 3: Edit [autoload] in composer.json

"autoload": {

        "files": [

            "app/Helpers/myHelpers.php",

        ],

Step 4: Reload Laravel

composer dump-autoload

Usage of "courier" helper 

In any of the function in Controller classes, call the helper function. Example

public function getUsers( ){

$users = User::where('status','active')->get();

$status=0; // success

$message=null;

if(count($users)>0){

$status=1; // success but not users available

$message="None";

}

return response(courier($status, $message, $users), 200);

}