Wahid's Tech Tales

Laravel 11: A Leap Forward in PHP Frameworks

Wahidul Alam's photo
Wahidul Alam
·

3 min read

Laravel

Laravel, the elegant PHP framework for web artisans, has introduced its latest iteration, Laravel 11, bringing a host of new features and improvements that streamline application development. In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore the key enhancements of Laravel 11 and provide practical code examples to help you leverage these new capabilities in your projects.

Streamlined Application Structure

Laravel 11 continues the tradition of providing a clean and modern structure for your applications. The new version introduces a more minimalistic application skeleton, which is the default for new projects1. This change aims to simplify the framework’s folder structure, making it more intuitive for developers.

Example: Simplified Directory Structure

app/
    ├── Http/
    │   └── Controllers/
    │       └── Controller.php
    ├── Models/
    │   └── User.php
    └── Providers/
        └── AppServiceProvider.php

Enhanced Routing and Middleware

Routing and middleware registration have been centralized in the bootstrap/app.php file, offering a more unified approach to configuring high-level application behavior1.

Example: Registering Routes and Middleware

bootstrap/app.php:

use Illuminate\Foundation\Application;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Configuration\Middleware;

return Application::configure(basePath: dirname(__DIR__))
    ->withRouting(
        web: __DIR__.'/../routes/web.php',
        // Other routes...
    )
    ->withMiddleware(function (Middleware $middleware) {
        // Middleware registration...
    })
    ->create();

Per-Second Rate Limiting

Laravel 11 introduces per-second rate limiting, allowing for more granular control over how often users can access certain routes or actions within your application1.

Example: Implementing Per-Second Rate Limiting

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Route;
use App\Http\Controllers\UserController;

Route::middleware('throttle:60,1')->group(function () {
    Route::get('/users', [UserController::class, 'index']);
});

Health Routing

A new feature called health routing provides a dedicated route to check the application’s health, which is essential for deployment and monitoring1.

Example: Health Check Route

// The '/up' route is automatically configured for health checks.

Graceful Encryption Key Rotation

Laravel 11 supports graceful encryption key rotation, ensuring that encrypted data remains secure even when encryption keys are rotated1.

Example: Rotating Encryption Keys

// Use Artisan command to rotate keys without affecting existing data.
php artisan key:rotate

Queue Testing Improvements

The queue system in Laravel 11 has seen improvements, particularly in testing, making it easier to write tests for queued jobs1.

Example: Testing Queued Jobs

// Use the new testing methods to assert jobs were pushed to the queue.
$this->assertPushed(YourJob::class);

New Artisan Commands

A suite of new Artisan commands has been added to Laravel 11, further enhancing the developer experience1.

Example: Using New Artisan Commands

// List all new commands available in Laravel 11.
php artisan list

Laravel Reverb: Real-Time Capabilities

Laravel 11 introduces Laravel Reverb, a first-party WebSocket server that provides robust real-time capabilities for your applications1.

Example: Setting Up Laravel Reverb

// Install Laravel Reverb for real-time event broadcasting.
composer require laravel/reverb

Conclusion

Laravel 11 marks a significant step forward in the evolution of the Laravel framework. With its streamlined structure, enhanced routing and middleware, per-second rate limiting, health routing, graceful encryption key rotation, queue testing improvements, new Artisan commands, and the introduction of Laravel Reverb, developers are equipped with a powerful toolkit to build modern, efficient, and scalable web applications.

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