Creating A Basic REST API in Laravel 9

In this tutorial, I am going to take you through the basics in building a REST API in Laravel. But before that lets take a quick glance into what a REST API is.

What is REST API?

A REST API, commonly referred to as a RESTful API, is a web API that complies with the restrictions of the REST architectural style and enables communication with RESTful web services. Computer scientist Roy Fielding came up with the acronym REST, which stands for representational state transfer.

More on REST APIs

Let get started.

Create a new Laravel project

composer create-project laravel/laravel basic_laravel_api

or using Laravel Installer

laravel new basic_laravel_api

and move into the directory

cd basic_laravel_api

Create a model and migration

php artisan make:model Post -m

Update and migrate your database

DB_CONNECTION=mysql
DB_HOST=127.0.0.1
DB_PORT=3306
DB_DATABASE=basic_laravel_api
DB_USERNAME=root
DB_PASSWORD=

Post table update

<?php

use Illuminate\Database\Migrations\Migration;
use Illuminate\Database\Schema\Blueprint;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Schema;

return new class extends Migration
{
    /**
     * Run the migrations.
     *
     * @return void
     */
    public function up()
    {
        Schema::create('posts', function (Blueprint $table) {
            $table->increments('id');
            $table->string('title');
            $table->string('body');
            $table->timestamps();
        });
    }

    /**
     * Reverse the migrations.
     *
     * @return void
     */
    public function down()
    {
        Schema::dropIfExists('posts');
    }
};

Then run your migrations

php artisan migrate

Create and Update your Controller

php artisan make:controller Api\\PostController --model=Post

Api Controller

<?php

namespace App\Http\Controllers\Api;

use App\Http\Controllers\Controller;
use App\Models\Post;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;

class PostController extends Controller
{
    /**
     * Display a listing of the resource.
     *
     * @return \Illuminate\Http\Response
     */
    public function index()
    {
        $posts = Post::all();

        return response()->json([
            'status' => true,
            'post' => $posts
        ]);
    }

    /**
     * Store a newly created resource in storage.
     *
     * @param  \Illuminate\Http\Request  $request
     * @return \Illuminate\Http\Response
     */
    public function store(Request $request)
    {
        $post = Post::create(request()->all());

        return response()->json([
            'stauts' => true,
            'post' => $post
        ]);
    }

    /**
     * Display the specified resource.
     *
     * @param  \App\Models\Post  $post
     * @return \Illuminate\Http\Response
     */
    public function show(Post $post)
    {
        $post = Post::find($post)->first();

        return response()->json([
            'status' => true,
            'post' => $post
        ]);

    }

    /**
     * Update the specified resource in storage.
     *
     * @param  \Illuminate\Http\Request  $request
     * @param  \App\Models\Post  $post
     * @return \Illuminate\Http\Response
     */
    public function update(Request $request, Post $post)
    {
        $post->update(request()->all());
        return response()->json([
            'status' => true,
            'post' => $post
        ]);
    }

    /**
     * Remove the specified resource from storage.
     *
     * @param  \App\Models\Post  $post
     * @return \Illuminate\Http\Response
     */
    public function destroy(Post $post)
    {
        $post->delete();

        return response()->json([
            'status' => true,
        ]);
    }
}

Define your routes

open routes/api.php

<?php

use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Route;
use App\Http\Controllers\Api\PostController;

Route::apiResource('v1/posts', PostController::class);

Start Laravel Server

php artisan serve

Preview using Postman

GET all Post

Create a Post. POST

GET a specific post

Update a post. PUT/PATCH

DELETE a post