If you are new to Laravel or any framework, You may be confused and sometimes when you start learning you may find some built-in classes or functions that you don't know where it comes from and sometimes you are saying It's a magic trick.
So, I will give you one Example of Laravel Magic.
In the following Image I created a simple command that count the user in Database and you can find that we used DB Class from Illuminate\Support\Facades
<?php
namespace App\Console\Commands;
use Illuminate\Console\Command;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\DB;
class MagicTrick extends Command
{
protected $signature = 'magic:run';
protected $description = 'Show a magic trick';
public function handle()
{
$usersCount = DB::table('users')->count();
$this->info("Users count: $usersCount");
}
}
And when we run it.
php artisan magic:run
We will find that.
Users count: 1
Till now its fine but what about if we removed this line use Illuminate\Support\Facades\DB;
<?php
namespace App\Console\Commands;
use Illuminate\Console\Command;
class MagicTrick extends Command
{
protected $signature = 'magic:run';
protected $description = 'Show a magic trick';
public function handle()
{
$usersCount = \DB::table('users')->count();
$this->info("Users count: $usersCount");
}
}
We will get the same result.
So How it works?
Laravel behind the scene uses class alias.
Let Me explain it in a simple way. For Example create a simple Enum Class
<?php
namespace App\Enums;
enum Gender: string
{
case MALE = 'M';
case FEMALE = 'F';
}
Then get back to the command
<?php
namespace App\Console\Commands;
use App\Enums\Gender;
use Illuminate\Console\Command;
class MagicTrick extends Command
{
protected $signature = 'magic:run';
protected $description = 'Show a magic trick';
public function handle()
{
$this->info('Male Enum value: ' . Gender::MALE->value);
}
}
Then when we run we will get Male Enum value: M.
What will happen if we remove use App\Enums\Gender;
We will get an error Class "App\Console\Commands\Gender" not found
So if we want to use a magic here simply we can use a simple PHP function class_alias()
class_alias('App\Enums\Gender', 'Gender');
You can simply put the above snippet into your service provider to use the alias anywhere in your project
Your final code in command will be:
<?php
namespace App\Console\Commands;
use Illuminate\Console\Command;
class MagicTrick extends Command
{
protected $signature = 'magic:run';
protected $description = 'Show a magic trick';
public function handle()
{
$this->info('Male Enum value: ' . \Gender::MALE->value);
}
}
Finally you can check the following link of Mohamed Said to learn more about Laravel magic tricks
Laravel Magic Tricks
