#laravel-framework

The latest version of Laravel framework is Laravel 5.6. Laravel always produces the best code which is clean and readable. Laravel is also known for its features like Authentication caching, Routing, Application logic, dependency logic etc. The most important concern when building the large web applications along with Laravel is its performance.

Pros of Laravel for website development

One can get dynamic templates which are light in weight. Also, this process is further facilitated by content seeding.

The most powerful and architectured widgets i.e. CSS and JSS add an overall appeal to your site.

Rather than using any SQL code for writing database queries, to facilitate your developer’s work you can get PHP syntax.

Laravel also offer high-level security with a strong password.

The delays can occur due to repetitive tasks but with the help of Artisan tool which is the powerful tool offering an automated mechanism for the repetitive tasks.

The list of new features in Laravel 5.6 is listed below.

1. Logging improvements:

This is the most improved and one of the biggest features incorporated in the Laravel 5.6 version. At the start, the logging configuration of the version V5.6 moves to config/logging.php to config/app.php.

One can also configure stacks which can send the log messages to multiple handlers. for example, you can even send all the debug messages to the system log, and then send error logs to the slack.

2. Single Server Task Scheduling

If you have any task scheduler which runs on more than one servers, the task runs on each server. One should indicate that the task must run on one of the servers having onOneServer() method.

3. Dynamic Rate Limiting:

Next is the dynamic rate limiting. Laravel 5.6 version introduces this and gives flexibility so that one can easily limit the per-user basis. Look at the example below:

Route::middleware('auth:api', 'throttle:rate_limit,1')

   ->group(function () {

       Route::get('/user', function () {

           //

       });

   });

Here, rate_limit is the attribute of the model App\User which determines the number of requests possible in the provided time limit.

4. Broadcast Channel Classes

Rather than using the closures, you can also use the channel classes in the routes/channels.php file. In order to generate the new channel class, the new version of Laravel i.e. Laravel 5.6 version provides the following:

php artisan make:channel OrderChannel

You register your channel in the routes/channels.php file like so:

use App\Broadcasting\OrderChannel; Broadcast::channel('order.{order}', OrderChannel::class);

5. API Controller Generation

Next, one can even generate the resources controller for API which does not include the edit and create actions which are no more required. These actions are applicable for resource controllers itself while returning the HTML. You can also use an –api flag.

php artisan make:controller API/PhotoController --api

6. Eloquent Date Casting

One can customize individually the formats of eloquent date and time casting. The format can also be used in model serialization to the JSON data or an array.

   protected $casts = [    'birthday' => 'date:Y-m-d',    'joined_at' => 'datetime:Y-m-d H:00', ];

7. Blade Component Aliases

One can also alias the blade components for the suitable access. For example,  to store a component at the resources/views/components/alert.blade.php one can use the component() method to alias it in the shorter name.

Blade::component('components.alert', 'alert');

You can then render it with the defined alias:

@component('alert')    <p>This is an alert component</p> @endcomponen

8. Argon2 Password Hashing

The new version of Laravel 5.6 also supports a password hashing algorithm for PHP 7.2 and above versions. One can control and check which hashing driver is being used by default in the next configuration file. new config/hashing.phpconfiguration file.

9. UUID Methods

Two new methods are now available in the Illuminate\Support\Str class for generating Universal Unique Identifiers (UUID):

In order to support or illuminate string class to generate UUID, below code is important.

return (string) Str::uuid();

return (string) Str::orderedUuid();

10. Collision

Collision provides error reporting which is a dev dependency.

11. Learning More About Laravel 5.6

In order to upgrade the Laravel version you need to refer the upgrade guide. The up-gradation time required is between 10 to 30 minutes and the mileage varies depending on your application.

Conclusion