Resource collections in Laravel - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Building a Laravel Resource Collection

📖 Scenario: You are creating a simple API for a bookstore. You want to send a list of books in a clean, structured format using Laravel resource collections.

🎯 Goal: Build a Laravel resource collection that transforms a list of books into a JSON response with specific fields.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create an array of books with exact titles and authors

Define a resource collection class for books

Use the resource collection to transform the books data

Return the transformed collection in a controller method

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

APIs often need to send data in a clean, consistent format. Laravel resource collections help format data before sending it to clients.

💼 Career

Backend developers use resource collections to build APIs that frontend apps or mobile apps consume, ensuring data is structured and easy to use.

1

Create the books data array

Create a variable called books that holds an array with these exact entries: ['title' => 'The Hobbit', 'author' => 'J.R.R. Tolkien'], ['title' => '1984', 'author' => 'George Orwell'], and ['title' => 'To Kill a Mockingbird', 'author' => 'Harper Lee'].

Laravel

# Create the books array with exact entries
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use a PHP array with associative arrays inside for each book.

2

Create a BookResource collection class

Create a Laravel resource collection class called BookResource that extends Illuminate\Http\Resources\Json\JsonResource. Inside, define the toArray method to return an array with keys 'title' and 'author' from the resource.

Laravel

$books = [
    ['title' => 'The Hobbit', 'author' => 'J.R.R. Tolkien'],
    ['title' => '1984', 'author' => 'George Orwell'],
    ['title' => 'To Kill a Mockingbird', 'author' => 'Harper Lee'],
];

// Create BookResource class below
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Extend JsonResource and override toArray to return title and author.

3

Transform the books array using BookResource collection

Create a variable called bookCollection that uses BookResource::collection($books) to transform the $books array.

Laravel

$books = [
    ['title' => 'The Hobbit', 'author' => 'J.R.R. Tolkien'],
    ['title' => '1984', 'author' => 'George Orwell'],
    ['title' => 'To Kill a Mockingbird', 'author' => 'Harper Lee'],
];

use Illuminate\Http\Resources\Json\JsonResource;

class BookResource extends JsonResource
{
    public function toArray($request)
    {
        return [
            'title' => $this->title,
            'author' => $this->author,
        ];
    }
}

// Create bookCollection using BookResource::collection
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use the static collection method on BookResource with $books.

4

Return the resource collection in a controller method

Create a controller method called index that returns $bookCollection as the response.

Laravel

$books = [
    ['title' => 'The Hobbit', 'author' => 'J.R.R. Tolkien'],
    ['title' => '1984', 'author' => 'George Orwell'],
    ['title' => 'To Kill a Mockingbird', 'author' => 'Harper Lee'],
];

use Illuminate\Http\Resources\Json\JsonResource;

class BookResource extends JsonResource
{
    public function toArray($request)
    {
        return [
            'title' => $this->title,
            'author' => $this->author,
        ];
    }
}

$bookCollection = BookResource::collection($books);

// Create index method that returns $bookCollection
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Define a function named index that returns the $bookCollection variable.