__                           _             
  / /  __ _ _ __ __ ___   _____| |            
 / /  / _` | '__/ _` \ \ / / _ \ |            
/ /__| (_| | | | (_| |\ V /  __/ |            
\____/\__,_|_|  \__,_| \_/ \___|_|            
                                              
   ___                          _             
  / _ \___ _ __   ___ _ __ __ _| |_ ___  _ __ 
 / /_\/ _ \ '_ \ / _ \ '__/ _` | __/ _ \| '__|
/ /_\\  __/ | | |  __/ | | (_| | || (_) | |   
\____/\___|_| |_|\___|_|  \__,_|\__\___/|_|   
                                              

On its own, when running migrations, Laravel simply creates the specified file, and adds a bit of boilerplate code. It's then up to you to fill in the Schema and such. ...Well that's a pain.

This generator task will fill in the gaps. It can generate several things:

• Controllers and actions
• Models
• Views
• Migrations and Schema
• Resources
• Assets
• Tests

Installation

Simply download the generate.php file from this repo, and save it to your application/tasks/ directory. Now, we can execute the various methods from the command line, via Artisan.

Controllers

To generate a controller for your project, run:

  php artisan generate:controller Admin

This will create a file, application/controllers/admin.php, with the following contents:

<?php 

class Admin_Controller extends Base_Controller 
{

}

However, we can also create methods/actions as well.

  php artisan generate:controller Admin index show edit

The arguments that we specify after the controller name (Admin) represent the methods that we desire.

<?php 

class Admin_Controller extends Base_Controller 
{

	public function action_index()
	{

	}

	public function action_show()
	{

	}

	public function action_edit()
	{

	}

}

But, what if we want to use restful methods? Well just add restful as any argument, like this:

php artisan generate:controller Admin restful index index:post

That will produce.

<?php 

class Admin_Controller extends Base_Controller 
{

	public $restful = true;

	public function get_index()
	{

	}

	public function post_index()
	{

	}

}

Sweet! It's-a-nice. When using restful methods, you can specify the verb after a : - index:post or maybe update:put.

So that's the controller generator.

Migrations

We can also generate migrations and schema. Let's say that we need to create a users table in the DB. Type:

php artisan generate:migration create_users_table

Notice that we separate each word with an underscore, and use a keyword, like create, update, delete, or add.

This will create a new file in application/migrations/ that contains:

<?php 
    
class Create_Users_Table
{

    public function up()
    {
        Schema::create('users', function($table)
        {
			$table->timestamps();
        });
    }

    public function down()
    {
        Schema::drop('users');
	}

}

Not bad, not bad. But what about the schema? Let's specify the fields for the table.

php artisan generate:migration create_users_table id:integer name:string email_address:string

That will give us:

<?php 
    
class Create_Users_Table
{

    public function up()
    {
        Schema::create('users', function($table)
        {
			$table->increments('id');
			$table->string('name');
			$table->string('email_address');
			$table->timestamps();
        });
    }

    public function down()
    {
        Schema::drop('users');
	}

}

Ahh hell yeah. Notice that it automatically applies the timestamps(). A bit opinionated maybe, but it only takes a second to delete, if you don't want them.

You can also specify other options, such as making your email field unique, or the age field optional - like this:

php artisan generate:migration create_users_table id:integer name:string email_address:string:unique age:integer:nullable

Now we get:

<?php 
    
class Create_Users_Table
{

    public function up()
    {
        Schema::create('users', function($table)
        {
			$table->increments('id');
			$table->string('name');
			$table->string('email_address')->unique();
			$table->integer('age')->nullable();
			$table->timestamps();
        });
    }

    public function down()
    {
        Schema::drop('users');
	}

}

Sweet!

Keywords

It's important to remember that the script tries to figure out what you're trying to accomplish. So it's important that you use keywords, like "add" or "delete". Here's some examples:

php artisan generate:migration add_user_id_to_posts_table user_id:integer
php artisan generate:migration delete_user_id_from_posts_table user_id:integer
php artisan generate:migration create_posts_table title:string body:text

There's three best practices worth noting here:

1. Our class/file names are very readable. That's important.
2. The script uses the word that comes before "_table" as the table name. So, for create_users_table, it'll set the table name to users.
3. I've used the CRUD keywords to describe what I want to do.

If we run the second example:

php artisan generate:migration delete_user_id_from_posts_table user_id:integer

...we get:

<?php 
    
class Delete_User_Id_From_Posts_Table
{

    public function up()
    {
        Schema::table('posts', function($table)
        {
			$table->drop_column('user_id');
        });
    }

    public function down()
    {
        Schema::table('posts', function($table)
        {
			$table->integer('user_id');
		});
	}

}

Views

Views are a cinch to generate.

php artisan generate:view index show

This will create two files within the views folder:

1. index.blade.php
2. show.blade.php

You can also specify subdirectories, via the period.

php artisan generate:view home.index home.edit

Which will create:

1. home/index.blade.php
2. home/edit.blade.php

Resources

But what if you want to save some time, and add a few things at once? Generating a resource will produce a controller, model, and view files. For example:

    php artisan generate:resource post index show

This will create:

1. A post.php model
2. A posts.php controller with index + show actions
3. A post views folder with index.blade.php and show.blade.php views.

Putting It All Together

So let's rapidly generate a resource for blog posts.

php artisan generate:resource post index show
php artisan generate:migration create_posts_table id:integer title:string body:text
php artisan migrate 

Of course, if you haven't already installed the migrations table, you'd do that first: php artisan migrate:install.

With those three lines of code, you now have:

1. A controller with two actions
2. A post model
3. a post views folder with two views: index and show
4. A new posts table in your db with id, title, and body fields.

Nifty, ay?

Assets

Just as a convenience, you can also generate stylesheets and scripts through the command line.

php artisan generate:assets style.css style2.css admin/script.js

This will create three files:

public/css/style.css
public/css/style2.css
public/js/admin/script.js

Note: that may seem like a lot to write for a simple task, but you can always create aliases for this stuff.

alias la="php artisan generate:assets";

Now, it's as easy as doing:

la style.css script.js

The default directory paths are:

• CSS => public/css/
• JavaScript => public/js/
• CoffeeScript => public/js/coffee/
• Sass (sass or scss extension) => public/css/sass

Tests

Laravel Generator can also generate PHPUnit test classes for you, like so:

php artisan generate:test user

If you only specify a class name, as we've done above, you'll get:

<?php
// application/tests/user.test.php
class User_Test extends PHPUnit_Framework_TestCase 
{

}

However, you can also add test cases as well.

php artisan generate:test user can_reset_user_password can_disable_user

This command will now produce:

<?php

class User_Test extends PHPUnit_Framework_TestCase {

    public function test_can_reset_user_password()
    {

    }

    public function test_can_disable_user()
    {

    }

}

Tips and Tricks

Shorthand

In addition to using the full generator names, there are also some convenience versions.

• generate:controller => generate:c
• generate:model => generate:m
• generate:migration => generate:mig
• generate:view => generate:v
• generate:resource => generate:r
• generate:assets => generate:a

You could also just create Bash aliases, like this:

alias g:c="php artisan generate:controller";
alias g:m="php artisan generate:model"

Now, to create a controller, you can simply type:

g:c config index

Refer here for more alias recommendations.