Laravel Installation & API Guide

Before installing Laravel, ensure you have the following installed:

• PHP ≥ 8.1
• Composer (PHP dependency manager)
• MySQL or other database system
• Web server (Apache/Nginx) or use Laravel's built-in server

Checking PHP and Composer versions

Use Composer to create a new Laravel project:

Installing Laravel via Composer

Set up your environment variables:

1. Copy .env.example to .env
2. Generate application key: php artisan key:generate
3. Configure database settings in .env file

Example .env file configuration

Start the development server:

Starting Laravel development server

Laravel makes it easy to build RESTful APIs. Key concepts:

• Routes: Define API endpoints
• Controllers: Handle request logic
• Models: Interact with database
• Resources: Transform data for API responses

Basic API controller structure

Define routes in routes/api.php:

API route definitions

Generate a controller with Artisan:

Generating an API controller

You can test your API with:

• Postman
• cURL
• Laravel's built-in HTTP tests

Testing API endpoint with cURL