Controller Integration

Controllers require specific integration to make call AJAX handlers and return their result. It is a good idea set up a base controller class for your application, or you can extend the Larajax\LarajaxController included with this package.

Let's take a look at the LarajaxController controller to see how AJAX is implemented.

namespace Larajax;

use Illuminate\Routing\Controller;
use Larajax\Contracts\AjaxControllerInterface;
use Exception;

/**
 * LarajaxController is a basic implementation of Larajax in a Laravel controller
 */
class LarajaxController extends Controller implements AjaxControllerInterface
{
    use \Larajax\Traits\AjaxController;

    /**
     * callAction injects AJAX handlers in to controller actions
     */
    public function callAction($action, $params)
    {
        try {
            if ($result = $this->callAjaxAction($action, array_values($params))) {
                return $result;
            }
        }
        catch (Exception $ex) {
            return ajax()->exception($ex);
        }

        return parent::callAction($action, $params);
    }
}

This controller class just needs to implement the AjaxControllerInterface interface and the Larajax\Traits\AjaxController trait provides a good way to do that. Then when a controller action is called (callAction), check to see if it is an AJAX request, and redirect the request to the AJAX handler (callAjaxAction) for processing.

The onSave handler method returns an instance of an AjaxResponse object, spawned by the ajax() helper function.

Implementing a Controller Class

First let's start by creating a profile controller.

namespace App\Controllers;

use Larajax\LarajaxController;

class ProfileController extends LarajaxController
{
    public function index()
    {
        return view('pages.profile.index');
    }

    public function onSave()
    {
        // ...
    }
}

Now set up a route definition for the index page. Be sure to use the any route to support both GET and POST. We will route to the index method of the controller class.

Route::any('/profile', [\App\Controllers\ProfileController::class, 'index']);

The onSave AJAX handler will be available to all actions defined by the ProfileController class.

Multi-Page Controllers

A single controller can serve multiple pages while sharing AJAX handlers between them. Define multiple routes pointing to the same controller:

// routes/web.php
Route::any('/users', [UserController::class, 'index']);
Route::any('/users/create', [UserController::class, 'create']);
Route::any('/users/{id}', [UserController::class, 'show']);

// UserController.php
class UserController extends LarajaxController
{
    public function index()
    {
        return view('users.index');
    }

    public function create()
    {
        return view('users.create');
    }

    public function show($id)
    {
        return view('users.show', ['user' => User::findOrFail($id)]);
    }

    // Handlers shared across all three pages
    public function onValidateEmail()
    {
        $exists = User::where('email', request('email'))->exists();
        return ajax()->data(['available' => !$exists]);
    }

    public function onSaveUser()
    {
        // Save logic used by both create and show pages
    }
}

All AJAX handlers defined in the controller are available to every page action it serves. This keeps related functionality together while avoiding code duplication.

TIP

For a deeper understanding of this pattern and how it compares to traditional resource controllers, see Architecture & Philosophy.