Single action controllers in Laravel - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Building a Single Action Controller in Laravel

📖 Scenario: You are creating a simple Laravel web app that shows a welcome message on the homepage. Instead of a full controller with many methods, you will use a single action controller to keep things clean and focused.

🎯 Goal: Build a single action controller in Laravel that returns a welcome view when the homepage is visited.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a single action controller class named WelcomeController

Add an __invoke method that returns the welcome view

Register a route for the homepage / that uses the WelcomeController

Ensure the route uses the controller as a callable

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Single action controllers are useful for simple pages or API endpoints where only one action is needed, making your code cleaner and easier to maintain.

💼 Career

Understanding single action controllers helps you write efficient Laravel applications and is a common pattern in professional Laravel development.

1

Create the Single Action Controller Class

Create a PHP class named WelcomeController inside the app/Http/Controllers directory. The class should be empty for now.

Laravel

<?php

namespace App\Http\Controllers;

// Your code here

Need a hint?

Use the php artisan make:controller WelcomeController --invokable command to generate this automatically, or create the file manually.

2

Add the __invoke Method

Inside the WelcomeController class, add a public method named __invoke that returns the view named welcome using return view('welcome');.

Laravel

<?php

namespace App\Http\Controllers;

class WelcomeController
{
    // Add the __invoke method below
    // Your code here
}

Need a hint?

The __invoke method allows the controller to be called as a single action.

3

Register the Route for the Homepage

In the routes/web.php file, add a route for the homepage path '/' that uses the WelcomeController as a callable by passing the class name as a string to Route::get.

Laravel

// Add the homepage route below
// Your code here

Need a hint?

Use the controller class name directly in the route to use the single action controller.

4

Complete the Setup and Test

Ensure the welcome.blade.php view file exists in the resources/views directory. The route and controller are now connected to show the welcome page when visiting /.

Laravel

// Confirm the welcome view exists
// Your code here

Need a hint?

Laravel includes a default welcome.blade.php view when you create a new project.