Building RESTful APIs with Laravel

Building RESTful APIs with Laravel

Create robust and well-documented RESTful APIs for your Laravel application.

API Resource Classes

Use API resources to transform your data:

class PostResource extends JsonResource
{
    public function toArray($request)
    {
        return [
            'id' => $this->id,
            'title' => $this->title,
            'slug' => $this->slug,
            'excerpt' => $this->excerpt,
            'published_at' => $this->published_at,
            'category' => new CategoryResource($this->whenLoaded('category')),
        ];
    }
}

API Controllers

class PostController extends Controller
{
    public function index()
    {
        $posts = Post::published()
            ->with('category')
            ->paginate(12);
            
        return PostResource::collection($posts);
    }
    
    public function show(Post $post)
    {
        return new PostResource($post->load('category', 'tags'));
    }
}

API Authentication

Use Laravel Sanctum for API authentication:

// Generate token
$token = $user->createToken('api-token')->plainTextToken;

// Protect routes
Route::middleware('auth:sanctum')->group(function () {
    Route::apiResource('posts', PostController::class);
});

API Documentation

Document your APIs with tools like:

• Laravel Scribe
• Swagger/OpenAPI
• Postman Collections