Session basics in Laravel - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Session basics

📖 Scenario: You are building a simple Laravel web app that needs to remember a user's favorite color during their visit.

🎯 Goal: Create a Laravel controller method that stores a favorite color in the session, then retrieves and displays it.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a session key to store the favorite color

Set the favorite color value in the session

Retrieve the favorite color from the session

Return a view or response showing the favorite color

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Web apps often need to remember user choices or data temporarily during a visit, like login status or preferences.

💼 Career

Understanding sessions is essential for backend web development to manage user state and data securely.

1

Create a controller method with a favorite color variable

In a Laravel controller method called showFavoriteColor, create a variable named favoriteColor and set it to the string 'blue'.

Laravel

<?php

namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use Illuminate\Http\Request;

class ColorController extends Controller
{
    public function showFavoriteColor()
    {
        // Create a variable called favoriteColor and set it to 'blue'
        // Your code here
    }
}

Need a hint?

Use $favoriteColor = 'blue'; inside the method.

2

Store the favorite color in the session

Inside the showFavoriteColor method, add a line to store the $favoriteColor variable in the session using the key 'color'. Use Laravel's session() helper function.

Laravel

<?php

namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use Illuminate\Http\Request;

class ColorController extends Controller
{
    public function showFavoriteColor()
    {
        $favoriteColor = 'blue';
        // Store $favoriteColor in session with key 'color'
        // Your code here
    }
}

Need a hint?

Use session(['color' => $favoriteColor]); to save the value.

3

Retrieve the favorite color from the session

Add a new variable called storedColor that retrieves the value from the session using the key 'color'. Use the session() helper function to get the value inside the showFavoriteColor method.

Laravel

 $favoriteColor]);
        // Retrieve the stored color from session into $storedColor
        // Your code here
    }
}

Need a hint?

Use $storedColor = session('color'); to get the value.

4

Return a response showing the stored favorite color

Complete the showFavoriteColor method by returning a simple string response that says 'Your favorite color is: ' followed by the $storedColor variable. Use Laravel's response() helper function.

Laravel

 $favoriteColor]);
        $storedColor = session('color');
        // Return a response with the text 'Your favorite color is: ' plus $storedColor
        // Your code here
    }
}

Need a hint?

Use return response('Your favorite color is: ' . $storedColor); to send the text.