Category: General

PHP 8 was delivered on November 26, 2020. You can download it here. It’s another significant rendition, which implies that there are some breaking changes, just as bunches of new highlights and execution enhancements.

Due to the breaking changes, there’s a higher possibility you’ll have to roll out certain improvements in your code to make it run on PHP 8. In the event that you’ve stayed up with the latest with the most recent deliveries however, the redesign shouldn’t be excessively hard, since most breaking changes were belittled before in the 7.* adaptations. Furthermore relax, this large number of censures are recorded in this post.

Other than breaking changes, PHP 8 likewise brings a pleasant arrangement of new highlights like the JIT compiler, association types, traits, and the sky is the limit from there.

Union types rfc

Given the dynamically typed nature of PHP, there are lots of cases where union types can be useful. Union types are a collection of two or more types which indicate that either one of those can be used.

public function foo(Foo|Bar $input): int|float;
Note that void can never be part of a union type, since it indicates “no return value at all”. Furthermore, nullable unions can be written using |null, or by using the existing ? notation:

public function foo(Foo|null $foo): void;

public function bar(?Bar $bar): void;

#JIT rfc
The JIT — just in time — compiler promises significant performance improvements, albeit not always within the context of web requests. I’ve done my own benchmarks on real-life web applications, and it seems like the JIT doesn’t make that much of a difference, if any, on those kinds of PHP projects.

If you want to know more about what the JIT can do for PHP, you can read another post I wrote about it here.

#The nullsafe operator rfc
If you’re familiar with the null coalescing operator you’re already familiar with its shortcomings: it doesn’t work on method calls. Instead you need intermediate checks, or rely on optional helpers provided by some frameworks:

$startDate = $booking->getStartDate();

$dateAsString = $startDate ? $startDate->asDateTimeString() : null;
With the addition of the nullsafe operator, we can now have null coalescing-like behaviour on methods!

$dateAsString = $booking->getStartDate()?->asDateTimeString();
You can read all about the nullsafe operator here.

#Named arguments rfc
Named arguments allow you to pass in values to a function, by specifying the value name, so that you don’t have to take their order into consideration, and you can also skip optional parameters!

function foo(string $a, string $b, ?string $c = null, ?string $d = null)
{ /* … */ }

foo(
b: ‘value b’,
a: ‘value a’,
d: ‘value d’,
);
You can read about them in-depth in this post.

#Attributes rfc
Attributes, commonly known as annotations in other languages, offers a way to add meta data to classes, without having to parse docblocks.

As for a quick look, here’s an example of what attributes look like, from the RFC:

use App\Attributes\ExampleAttribute;

#[ExampleAttribute]
class Foo
{
#[ExampleAttribute]
public const FOO = ‘foo’;

#[ExampleAttribute]
public $x;

#[ExampleAttribute]
public function foo(#[ExampleAttribute] $bar) { }
}
#[Attribute]
class ExampleAttribute
{
public $value;

public function __construct($value)
{
$this->value = $value;
}
}
Note that this base Attribute used to be called PhpAttribute in the original RFC, but was changed with another RFC afterwards. If you want to take a deep dive into how attributes work, and how you can build your own; you can read about attributes in-depth on this blog.

In a limited capacity to focus time, Laravel has surprised the PHP people group, and it hasn’t been eased back down since its presentation. This is the motivation behind why Laravel needn’t bother with any kind of presentation, as it is perceived as one of the quickest going backend structures for 2020 also. I love this PHP based structure more than some other system as it makes the cycle of programming advancement so simpler executing, modules, bundles, modules, and parts. I’m composing this blog entry to get you through the best bundles for Laravel in 2020. I have chosen to compose this blog in 2 distinct parts. Partially 1, I will make reference to the best 10 Laravel bundles, and to some extent 2, we will examine the leftover Laravel bundles.

So what precisely are the Laravel bundles?

Bundles are one of the incredible approaches to speed up web application advancement and save your important time from the monotonous assignment of composing the code without any preparation as it tends to be openly reused anyplace in the code. Laravel has distinctive various types of bundles; some of them independent – Behat and Carbon are the best instances of such pages as it very well may be unreservedly utilized with every one of the systems mentioning COMPOSER.JS record. In a layman’s term, Laravel Packages, otherwise called laravel modules, are prepared to utilize the composed content that you can fitting and play into your application whenever it might suit you. Laravel’s bundles merit extraordinary consideration since they do limit the code as well as improve the application’s viability.

How to introduce Laravel bundle?

Laravel bundles can be partitioned into two fundamental classes, Laravel explicit bundles, and system autonomous bundles. Laravel explicit bundles solely work with Laravel structure just, though system free bundles likewise work with other PHP based systems. Cycle of Installing Composer Package in Laravel Composer for Laravel is the thing that NPM is to JavaScript. With regards to introducing the bundle or module, its direct cycle Write a one-line code in the composer.json document, and your task is finished on the grounds that the arranger naturally pulls its bundle from packagelist.org. To introduce the Laravel bundle, the linguistic structure for introducing the order line goes this way;

arranger require packageowner/packagename

Utilize the underneath order, to bring the refreshed bundle

php craftsman update

To utilize the introduced bundle, launch another item

$package = new Package;

On the off chance that the bundle is namespaced;

$package = new PackageNamespace\Package;

To guarantee approve at merchant/author/autoload_* documents. You can likewise guarantee it from the fundamental bundle source document.

vendor/vendorName/packageName/[src or lib or whatever]/Package.php

Top Laravel Packages

We should view the best Laravel bundles to upgrade the exhibition of your Laravel application.

1. Laravel Debugbar
Laravel Debugbar One of my favorite Laravel packages is Debugbar that I mostly use to audit the code. It adds a dev toolbar to display exceptions, debug messages, routes, open views, and DB queries for the application. It will also show the rendered templates and parameters that you have passed. Usage: Add using the Façade and PSR-3 levels
Debugbar::info($object);
Debugbar::error(‘Error!’);
Debugbar::warning(‘Watch out…’);
Debugbar::addMessage(‘Another message’, ‘mylabel’);

And start/stop timing:
Debugbar::startMeasure(‘render’,’Time for rendering’);
Debugbar::stopMeasure(‘render’);
Debugbar::addMeasure(‘now’, LARAVEL_START, microtime(true));
Debugbar::measure(‘My long operation’, function() {
// Do something…
});

2. Entrust
This package comes handy when it comes to add role-based permissions in your Laravel 5 application. Entrust devides into 4 different categories: Store role records, store permission records, to store relation between roles and users and to store various relations between roles and permission.
Concept

$admin = new Role();
$admin->name = ‘admin’;
$admin->display_name = ‘User Administrator’; // optional
$admin->description = ‘User is allowed to manage and edit other users’; // optional
$admin->save();
Next, assign them to the user.
$user = User::where(‘username’, ‘=’, ‘michele’)->first();

// role attach alias
$user->attachRole($admin); // parameter can be an Role object, array, or id

// or eloquent’s original technique
$user->roles()->attach($admin->id); // id only
Add role-based permissions:
$createPost = new Permission();
$createPost->name = ‘create-post’;
$createPost->display_name = ‘Create Posts’; // optional
// Allow a user to…
$createPost->description = ‘create new blog posts’; // optional
$createPost->save();

$editUser = new Permission();
$editUser->name = ‘edit-user’;
$editUser->display_name = ‘Edit Users’; // optional
// Allow a user to…
$editUser->description = ‘edit existing users’; // optional
$editUser->save();

$admin->attachPermission($createPost);
// equivalent to $admin->perms()->sync(array($createPost->id));

$owner->attachPermissions(array($createPost, $editUser));
// equivalent to $owner->perms()->sync(array($createPost->id, $editUser->id))

3. Sentry
I am pretty sure that you are familiar with the Laravel error tracking service. Sentry has its own Laravel integration. For any unexpected error you will receive an email outlining what’s wrong with ongoing app. To inspect entire block of code and track group errors, its convenient feature for dashboard. Sentry

4. Bugsnag
Bugsnag To manage the expectations and monitor the errors, it is another cross-platform tool. Just like the Sentry, it offers fully customizable filtering and reporting. Instead of email, you will receive notification through Slack and Pagerduty.

5. Socialite
Socialite One of the simplest and easiest way to handle OAuth authentication. Where users can sign in with the help of most popular social networks like Facebook, Gmail, Twitter, BigBucket, and GitHub.

< ?php
namespace App\Http\Controllers\Auth;
use App\Http\Controllers\Controller;
use Socialite;
class LoginController extends Controller
{
/**
* Redirect the user to the GitHub authentication page.
*
* @return \Illuminate\Http\Response
*/
public function redirectToProvider()
{
return Socialite::driver(‘github’)->redirect();
}
/**
* Obtain the user information from GitHub.
*
* @return \Illuminate\Http\Response
*/
public function handleProviderCallback()
{
$user = Socialite::driver(‘github’)->user();
// $user->token;
}
}

6. Laravel Mix
Laravel Mix Laravel Mix is known as Laravel Elixir, widely used to create an interactive API for webpack-build steps for your project. This tool is commonly used for optimizing and compiling assets in Laravel application similar to the gulp and Grant.
Install Laravel
Run npm install
Visit your webpack.mix.js file, and get started!

7. Eloquent-Sluggable
The purpose of this package is to provide unique slug – a simplified version of string – that eliminates ampersands, accented letters, and spaces converting it into one case, and this package aims to make users happier with automatic and minimal configuration.
use Cviebrock\EloquentSluggable\Sluggable;

class Post extends Model
{
use Sluggable;

/**
* Return the sluggable configuration array for this model.
*
* @return array
*/
public function sluggable()
{
return [
‘slug’ => [
‘source’ => ‘title’
]
];
}
}

8. Laravel Heyman
Laravel Heyman Laravel Heyman lets you validate, authenticate and authorize rest of your application’s code.
< ?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″? >

< phpunit backupGlobals=”false”

backupStaticAttributes=”false”

bootstrap=”vendor/autoload.php”

colors=”true”

convertErrorsToExceptions=”true”

convertNoticesToExceptions=”true”

convertWarningsToExceptions=”true”

processIsolation=”false”

stopOnFailure=”false”

>

< testsuites >

< testsuite name=”Package Test Suite” >

< directory suffix=”.php”>./tests/< /directory >

< /testsuite >

< /testsuites >

< PHP >

< env name=”APP_ENV” value=”testing”/ >

< env name=”CACHE_DRIVER” value=”array”/ >

< env name=”SESSION_DRIVER” value=”array”/ >

< /php >

< logging >

< log type=”coverage-clover” target=”/tmp/coverage.xml”/ >

< /logging >

< filter >
< whitelist addUncoveredFilesFromWhitelist=”true” >

< directory suffix=”.php” >./src< /directory >

< /whitelist >
< /filter >
< /phpunit >

9. Laravel Charts
laravel chart Charts is a PHP Laravel library to handle unlimited combinations of the charts. It is specifically designed to be loaded over AJAX and can be used without any external efforts. Laravel charts package makes use of simple API to create JS logic for your web application. Installation:
composer require consoletvs/charts:6.*

10. Laravel Form Builder
Laravel form builder is inspired by Symfony’s form builder to create forms that can be easily modified and reused at our convenience. This package provides external support for Bootstrap3. To install: Via Composer
composer require ycs77/laravel-form-builder-bs4
Publish config & templates
php artisan vendor:publish –tag=laravel-form-builder-bs4
Or publish horizontal form
php artisan vendor:publish –tag=laravel-form-builder-bs4-horizontal