[0:00] [MUSIC]
[0:05] Hi, I'm Jonathan,
a full stack web developer and
[0:08] instructor here at Treehouse.
[0:12] In this course, we're going to
build a REST API with Laravel,
[0:16] one of the most popular
PHP frameworks today.
[0:20] Even if you've never built an API,
[0:22] the concept is very similar
to web applications.
[0:26] They both take in a request and
return a response.
[0:30] The critical difference
is how they respond.
[0:33] Web applications return an HTML format.
[0:37] While REST APIs most commonly return
a JSON format, and sometimes XML.
[0:44] So what is REST, exactly?
[0:47] REST is an acronym that stands for
Representational State Transfer.
[0:53] An architectural style first
represented by Roy Fielding in 2000.
[0:58] Check the teachers notes below to
learn more about Roy Fielding and
[1:02] the six guiding constraints for
all REST APIs.
[1:08] The most important constraint
to remember is statelessness.
[1:12] Requests from clients to the server
[1:14] must contain all of the information
necessary to understand the request.
[1:19] And cannot store any state context
on the server, only on the client.
[1:26] It's also important to remember that
[1:28] application state is not
the same as resource state.
[1:33] Resource state, in the context of REST,
[1:36] is the state of some data represented
on the server at any point in time.
[1:42] Application state, on the other hand,
is everything necessary to keep
[1:47] your application running,
which is stored in the server's memory,
[1:52] and is faster than storing and
retrieving information from a database.
[1:57] For example,
to identify incoming requests,
[2:01] such as creating, modifying,
or deleting a resource.
[2:06] Before taking this course, you should
be familiar with setting up a Laravel
[2:11] project with composer and have a basic
understanding of rest API's using postman.
[2:18] If you need to brush up on Laravel,
Composer, REST APIs, or
[2:23] Postman, check out
the teachers notes below.
[2:27] As always,
you can use the controls to speed up or
[2:30] slow down this video, and
the captions are moveable.
[2:35] So feel free to move the closed
captions to suit your needs.
[2:39] Finally, try to develop a solid habit of
[2:42] reading the Laravel
documentation regularly.
[2:46] And be sure to select the correct
Laravel version as well.
[2:50] Laravel has excellent documentation.
[2:53] And if you're not sure what version
of Laravel you're working with,
[2:56] navigate to your project
directory in the terminal and
[3:00] type php artisan --version to find out.
[3:06] Building a REST API is
a valuable skill that any PHP
[3:10] developer should have in their
wheelhouse of development skills.
[3:15] Front-end frameworks are becoming
more popular every day, and
[3:18] they will all need a backend server
responding to their requests.
[3:23] Mobile applications have become part
of everyday life around the world.
[3:27] And yet, they all need to
communicate with a database or
[3:31] some infrastructure, most commonly REST.
[3:35] In this course,
we'll build a REST API with Laravel
[3:39] that allows you to submit your
favorite books and authors.
[3:43] The REST API we're building from scratch
can return a list of books with authors,
[3:50] and also allows you to submit,
update, and delete books and authors.
[3:56] This aggregating of information
is a common use case for APIs,
[4:00] as well as SaaS applications,
short for software as a service,
[4:05] such as TurboTax, or Spotify.
[4:09] Let's get started.
[4:11] To get started, you'll need to
install Laravel with Composer,
[4:14] then create a new Laravel project in
your preferred working directory.
[4:19] For demonstration purposes,
[4:21] I'll use laravel_apps in
the desktop directory, like this.
[4:28] Open the terminal and
[4:29] navigate to the desktop using the cd
Desktop/laravel_apps/ command,
[4:35] then use the following command to create a
Laravel project using Composer like this.
[4:42] While Composer installs Laravel, it's
worth noting that any existing Laravel
[4:47] project that uses dependencies, will
need to run the Composer update command
[4:52] to install any dependencies used
by the existing application.
[4:56] Since this is a new project, we don't need
to use the Composer update command, but
[5:01] you will eventually need to use
it when working with teams, or
[5:05] when you want to run an existing
Laravel application using dependencies.
[5:10] To learn more about Composer update, and
[5:13] Laravel mix,
check out the teacher's notes below.
[5:17] Next, let's navigate to our
new Laravel project using
[5:22] cd Laravel_rest_api/ then
use the following command
[5:27] to open our new Laravel
project in Visual Studio code.
[5:32] Finally, let's review our Laravel app
by using the following command in
[5:37] the integrated terminal like this.
[5:45] Great job.
[5:46] We have our Laravel application up and
running.
[5:51] Before we continue,
let's open a new terminal so
[5:54] we can continue serving our Laravel
application using the first terminal.
[5:59] Next, create a database, user, and
[6:02] password which will add to
the .env file like this
[6:11] Note that some Mac OS
users may need to use
[6:15] an additional database
variable named DB_SOCKET.
[6:20] Remember, if you need to review how
to create a database, user, and
[6:24] password, or
you're getting errors such as db-errors or
[6:28] max length errors, be sure to
check the teacher's notes below.
[6:33] To test our new Laravel application and
the database credentials we entered,
[6:38] simply type php artisan
migrate in the terminal.
[6:45] Great job,
we successfully migrated our database.
[6:49] This next step is optional, but
i like to use the default welcome view for
[6:54] testing so I can see what our API looks
like in the browser as we add new routes.
[7:01] Let's edit the welcome view located
in the resources/views directory,
[7:06] or download the project files and
simply paste the welcome blade like this.
[7:13] First, change the titles on line 7 and
84 to build
[7:18] a Laravel REST API Next,
let's add the following links.
[7:28] Replace the # sign with the URL for
your README if you have one for
[7:33] this project on GitHub Next,
we're going to add the author's link.
[7:41] The author's link uses the built in
env function to access the app URL.
[7:47] Cool.
[7:49] Next, we're going to add
the books link like this.
[7:54] The books link also uses the built in
env function to access the app URL.
[8:00] Finally, let's add a Chrome
extension link like this.
[8:06] The handy Chrome extension named
json-formatter displays JSON
[8:10] in a more human readable format.
[8:14] Let's take a look at
the updated welcome view.
[8:19] Nice job, we have a landing page,
or welcome view,
[8:23] showing off our application with a README,
our author, and
[8:28] book routes, and a link to the JSON
formatter chrome extension.
[8:34] We're off to a great start.
[8:36] We've installed Laravel using Composer,
added our database credentials to the env
[8:42] file, and tested our database
connection using the artisan command,
[8:47] php artisan migrate.
[8:51] We even updated the welcome view
to make a useful landing page.
[8:55] In the next section, we're going to
delete our default migrations and
[9:00] use artisan to create our projects
database models and migrations.
[9:05] See you there.