I have been developing with Zend Framework for a number of years and am now learning Laravel.
In my previous applications I usually have a Service Layer that is called by controllers. The Service Layer sits across the top of a Mapper and a Domain Model and is responsible for some application logic, raising events, some input filtering, etc.
Is there any reason why I should not implement a Service Layer in Laravel? In the examples that I have seen so far, controllers work directly with domain objects (or more accurately, active records).
If my Laravel controllers called my Service Layer, would I lose any of the advantages of Laravel? (As far as I can see I can still use Route/Model binding).
As a secondary question - what would be the best way to implement my Service Layer? As a collection of Service Providers, perhaps?
I also switched to Laravel coming from Zend and missed my Services. To sooth myself I have implemented a Service namespace which sits in namespace App\Services. In there I do all my Model or data handeling I don't want to see in my controller etc.
An example of my controller layout:
<?php
namespace App\Http\Controllers;
use App\Services\Contact as ContactService;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Lang;
class IndexController extends Controller
{
/**
* Create a new controller instance.
*
* @param Request $request
* @return void
*/
public function __construct(Request $request)
{
$this->_request = $request;
}
/**
* Standard contact page
*
* @return contact page
*/
public function contact(ContactService $contactService)
{
$errors = null;
$success = false;
if ($this->_request->isMethod('post')) {
$validator = $contactService->validator($this->_request->all());
if ($validator->fails()) {
$errors = $validator->errors();
} else {
$contactService->create($validator->getData());
$success = true;
}
}
return view('pages/contact', ['errors' => $errors, 'success' => $success]);
}
}
The services return validators, handle cruds, basically do everything that I don't want to see in my Controller just like I had it in my Zend projects.
Example of Service:
<?php
namespace App\Services;
use Validator;
use Mail;
use App\Models\Contact as ContactModel;
class Contact
{
/**
* Get a validator for a contact.
*
* @param array $data
* @return \Illuminate\Contracts\Validation\Validator
*/
public function validator(array $data)
{
return Validator::make($data, [
'email' => 'required|email|max:255',
'phone' => 'max:255',
'firstName' => 'required|max:255',
'lastName' => 'required|max:255',
'message' => 'required'
]);
}
/**
* Create a new contact instance after a valid form.
*
* @param array $data
* @return ContactModel
*/
public function create(array $data)
{
//Handle or map any data differently if needed, just for illustration
$data = [
'email' => $data['email'],
'firstName' => $data['firstName'],
'lastName' => $data['lastName'],
'language' => $data['language'],
'phone' => $data['phone'],
'message' => $data['message']
];
// Send an email
Mail::send('emails.contact', ['data' => $data], function ($m) use ($data) {
$m->from(config('mail.from.address'), config('mail.from.name'));
$m->to(env('MAIL_TO', '[email protected]'), env('MAIL_TO'))->subject('Contact form entry from: ' . $data['firstName']);
});
return ContactModel::create($data);
}
}