Laravel Helpers Example

How to Work With Laravel Helpers

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Hello, Laravel Developers! Have you ever felt like repeatedly writing the same bits of code? Or are you looking for a more elegant and effective way to handle common tasks in your Laravel projects? Well, you’re going to be amazed! Today, we’re diving into the wonderful world of Laravel Helpers—for making development smoother, faster, and just a whole lot more fun.

Imagine Laravel helpers as your personal toolkit filled with handy PHP functions that are ready to jump in and simplify your life as a developer . These aren’t your unremarkable functions; they’re nurtured with care to tackle everyday tasks, from tuning and managing arrays to generating URLs and handling file paths .In addition they’re also globally available.

Why Should You Befriend Laravel Helpers?

“Why should I bother with these helpers?” Because they bring a bunch of advantages to the table:

  • Speedy Development: Helpers are designed to handle repetitive tasks with simple, one-line calls, i.e., less time spent writing boilerplate code and more time focusing on the unique features of your application .
  • Cleaner Code: It you can replace multiple lines of code with a single, expressive function call.To make code easier to read, understand, and maintain.
  • Consistency: Laravel’s built-in helpers provide a consistent way of performing common operations to your code is uniform and predictable.
  • Efficiency: These functions are often optimized for performance, helping your application run smoothly.
  • Less Bug-Prone: Being a part of the Laravel framework and being well-tested, you’re less likely to introduce bugs compared to writing the same logic from scratch every time .

Let’s discover of the most commonly used helper groups!

Taming Text with String Helpers

Strings are everywhere in web development, and Laravel proposes a fantastic set of string helpers to make manipulating them a breeze .

  • Str::slug($title, $separator = ‘-‘): Need to create a URL-friendly slug from a title? This helper converts spaces to hyphens (or your chosen separator) and removes special characters. Super handy for creating clean URLs!
PHP

use Illuminate\Support\Str;




$title = "This is a Blog Post Title!";

$slug = Str::slug($title); // Output: "this-is-a-blog-post-title"
  • Str::camel($value): Want to convert a string to camelCase? This laravel helpers can simplify the process quickly!
PHP

$snakeCase = "hello_world";

$camelCase = Str::camel($snakeCase); // Output: "helloWorld"
  • Str::snake($value, $separator = ‘_’): Going the other way? Convert a string to snake_case with ease.
PHP

$camelCase = "myNewVariable";

$snakeCase = Str::snake($camelCase); // Output: "my_new_variable"

 

Laravel Helpers Example

 

  • Str::title($value): Make your strings look like proper titles by capitalizing the first letter of each word.
PHP

$sentence = "the quick brown fox";

$titleCase = Str::title($sentence); // Output: "The Quick Brown Fox"

 

Laravel Helpers Another Example

 

  • Str::contains($haystack, $needles): Quickly check if a string contains a specific substring (or an array of substrings).
PHP

$text = "Laravel is awesome!";

$contains = Str::contains($text, "awesome"); // Output: true

$containsMultiple = Str::contains($text, ["PHP", "awesome"]); // Output: true

These are just a few examples; Laravel has many more string helpers like Str::after(), Str::before(), Str::limit(), and more!

Managing Data with Array Helpers

Arrays are crucial in PHP, and Laravel provides a set of array helpers under the Arr facade to make working with them more intuitive.

  • Arr::get($array, $key, $default = null): Safely access elements in a potentially nested array using dot notation. If the key doesn’t exist, you can specify a default value.
PHP

use Illuminate\Support\Arr;




$data = ['user' => ['name' => 'John', 'age' => 30]];

$name = Arr::get($data, 'user.name'); // Output: "John"

$city = Arr::get($data, 'user.city', 'Unknown'); // Output: "Unknown"

 

  • Arr::first($array, $callback = null, $default = null): Get the first element in an array that passes a given truth test (defined by the callback).
PHP

$numbers = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5];

$firstEven = Arr::first($numbers, function ($value) {

    return $value % 2 === 0;

}); // Output: 2
  • Arr::add($array, $key, $value): Add a key-value pair to an array only if the key doesn’t already exist or is null.
PHP

$info = ['name' => 'Alice'];

$updatedInfo = Arr::add($info, 'age', 25); // Output: ['name' => 'Alice', 'age' => 25]

$updatedInfoAgain = Arr::add($updatedInfo, 'age', 30); // Output: ['name' => 'Alice', 'age' => 25]
  • Arr::except($array, $keys): Create a new array by removing the specified keys.
PHP

$person =;

$withoutCity = Arr::except($person, ['city']); // Output:

Laravel’s array helpers also include functions for tasks like collapsing multi-dimensional arrays (Arr::collapse()), flattening arrays (Arr::flatten()), and checking if keys exist (Arr::has()) .

Finding Your Way with Path Helpers

Path helpers provide convenient ways to get the absolute paths to various directories in your Laravel application . No more hardcoding paths!

  • app_path($path = ”): Get the full path to your app You can also append a path to a specific file or subdirectory.
PHP

$appPath = app_path(); // Output: /path/to/your/project/app

$controllerPath = app_path('Http/Controllers/UserController.php');
  • base_path($path = ”): Returns the path to the root of your Laravel application.
PHP

$basePath = base_path(); // Output: /path/to/your/project

$composerPath = base_path('composer.json');
  • config_path($path = ”): Get the path to your config
PHP

$configPath = config_path(); // Output: /path/to/your/project/config

$appConfigPath = config_path('app.php');
  • public_path($path = ”): Returns the path to your public
PHP

$publicPath = public_path(); // Output: /path/to/your/project/public

$assetPath = public_path('css/style.css');
  • storage_path($path = ”): Get the path to your storage
PHP

$storagePath = storage_path(); // Output: /path/to/your/project/storage

$logPath = storage_path('logs/laravel.log');

Navigating the Web with URL Helpers

URL helpers are your go-to for generating URLs within your Laravel application.

  • url($path = null, $parameters =, $secure = null): Generate a fully qualified URL to the given path.
PHP

$profileUrl = url('/profile'); // Output: http://your-app.com/profile

$userProfileUrl = url('/user/profile', ['id' => 1]); // Output: http://your-app.com/user/profile?id=1
  • route($name, $parameters =, $absolute = true): Generate a URL to a named route. This is incredibly useful as you can change the actual URL in your routes file without breaking links in your views.
PHP

// Assuming you have a route named 'users.show' with a parameter 'id'

$userUrl = route('users.show', ['id' => 5]); // Output: http://your-app.com/users/5
  • asset($path, $secure = null): Generate a URL for an asset in your public
PHP

$logoUrl = asset('images/logo.png'); // Output: http://your-app.com/images/logo.png
  • action($controllerAction, $parameters =, $absolute = true): Generate a URL to a specific controller action.
PHP

// Assuming you have a UserController with an index method

$usersIndexUrl = action([App\Http\Controllers\UserController::class, 'index']);

Laravel also provides helpers for secure URLs (secure_url(), secure_asset()) and generating URLs for controller actions (action()).

 

Read More Blog Post

Laravel File Storage: An Easy Guide for Developers

Start your Development with Laravel Events and Listeners

Use Laravel Contracts for Better Programming in Laravel 12.x Framework

 

Crafting Your Own Helpers

Though Laravel’s built-in helpers are amazing, you might encounter situations where you need custom functionality. No need to worry, Laravel makes it easy to create your own helper functions. Here’s a simple way to do it:

  1. Create a Helpers File: In your app directory (or a subdirectory like app/Helpers), create a new PHP file, for example, php.
  2. Define Your Functions: Inside this file, define your custom helper functions. It’s a good practice to wrap your function definitions in an if (!function_exists(‘your_function_name’)) check to avoid potential naming conflicts.
PHP

<?php




if (! function_exists('format_date')) {

    function format_date($date, $format = 'Y-m-d')

    {

        return \Carbon\Carbon::parse($date)->format($format);

    }

}
  1. Autoload Your Helpers: To make your custom helpers globally available, you need to tell Composer to autoload this file. Open your json file and add the path to your helpers file in the files section under autoload .
JSON

"autoload": {

    "files": [

        "app/helpers.php"

    ],

    "psr-4": {

        "App\\": "app/",

        "Database\\Factories\\": "database/factories/",

        "Database\\Seeders\\": "database/seeders/"

    }

},
  1. Run Composer Autoload: Finally, run the following command in your terminal to regenerate the autoload files :
Bash

composer dump-autoload

Now you can use your format_date() helper function anywhere in your Laravel application!

Conclusion

Laravel helpers are very familiar to the developer. They give a vehicle to your workflow, make your code cleaner, and help you focus on building amazing applications. By understanding and utilizing the built-in helpers, and even creating your own, you’ll become a more efficient and effective Laravel developer. So go ahead. Happy coding!