Almost every web project needs a Laravel file upload feature. Yes, your user needs to be able to submit their CV online or send their favorite music to an online portal. Depending on the language you’re building your web project with, you might find it easy to add functionality for Laravel file upload.
Doing a Laravel file upload is one of the easiest to implement. It’s a progressive PHP framework that’s robust, easy to understand, and one of the best choices for building modern, full-stack web applications.
In this post, I’ll take you through the process of executing file upload with Laravel in your web app. Plus, I’ll also explain some reasons why it’s easier to implement and succeed with Laravel than you may think.
But before then…
What is Laravel?
Laravel is a free, open-source PHP framework built by Taylor Orwell and mainly used for developing structured web apps. The framework combines the basic features of PHP frameworks (like CodeIgniter and Yii) along with other programming languages (such as Ruby on Rails) to offer a rich set of functionalities. When building web apps with Laravel, you can reuse components from other frameworks.
This is what makes Laravel exciting to use. During the web development process, you get to save time and use the best of various worlds. With an expressive syntax, the framework is easy to understand and eases common tasks in your web development processes. If you’re already a badass at PHP, you’ll find it pretty smooth working with Laravel on web projects. But if you’re still taking baby steps as a web developer, Laravel’s vast library of documentation and tutorials would keep you from getting stuck.
To get started, you need to download and install the Laravel framework [1]. Now that you’ve seen what Laravel is…
Why Laravel File Upload?
Uploading files is one critical and essential feature in every web application. From submitting a CV to uploading a profile picture, we encounter file upload processes in our daily digital activities. When it comes to building a file upload feature, there are several programming languages and frameworks that we can use.
Laravel does the file upload job pretty well. The Laravel file upload functionality makes it easy to upload files and store these files using the store method on an uploaded file instance. It simply works when you create a view file where a user can select a file to be uploaded and a controller where uploaded files will be processed.
Let’s dive in and see how it’s implemented.
How To Implement A Laravel File Upload?
To implement the file upload functionality in Laravel, you need to create:
- A view file (that any user can select files to be uploaded)
- A controller (where the uploaded files will be processed)
Depending on the storage options, whether local filesystems, SFTP, or Amazon S3, you also need to use the Storage::disk(‘local’)->putFileAs( ‘file name’) function.
Here’s the step-by-step Laravel File Upload process.
Step #1: Create A View File
To implement the Laravel File Upload process, you need to create a view file called resources/views/uploadfile.php.
You can do this by adding the following code to the file.
<html>
<body>
<?php
echo Form::open(array('url' => '/uploadfile','files'=>'true'));
echo 'Select the file to upload.';
echo Form::file('image');
echo Form::submit('Upload File');
echo Form::close();
?>
</body>
</html>Step #2: Create A Controller
Next, you need to create a controller called UploadFileController.
You do this by executing the following command.
php artisan make:controller UploadFileController --plainAfter you’ve executed the command above in UploadFileController successfully, you’ll receive an output…
Step #3: Copy & Paste The Following Code
Next, you need to copy the following code into the app/Http/Controllers/UploadFileController.php file.
<?php
namespace App\Http\Controllers;
use Illuminate\Http\Request; use App\Http\Requests; use App\Http\Controllers\Controller;
class UploadFileController extends Controller {
public function index() {
return view('uploadfile');
}
public function showUploadFile(Request $request) {
$file = $request->file('image');
//Display File Name
echo 'File Name: '.$file->getClientOriginalName();
echo '<br>';
//Display File Extension
echo 'File Extension: '.$file->getClientOriginalExtension();
echo '<br>';
//Display File Real Path
echo 'File Real Path: '.$file->getRealPath();
echo '<br>';
//Display File Size
echo 'File Size: '.$file->getSize();
echo '<br>';
//Display File Mime Type
echo 'File Mime Type: '.$file->getMimeType();
//Move Uploaded File
$destinationPath = 'uploads';
$file->move($destinationPath,$file->getClientOriginalName());
}
}Step #4: Copy The Code In app/Http/routes.php file.
Also, copy the following code into the app/Http/routes.php file.
Route::get('/uploadfile','UploadFileController@index');
Route::post('/uploadfile','UploadFileController@showUploadFile');Step #5: Test the Laravel File Upload Functionality
Before deploying the Laravel file upload functionality, you need to test it and be sure it’s working properly.
You can test the implementation by visiting the following URL.
http://localhost:8000/uploadfileAfter that, you’ll receive a file upload prompt which you can try out.
Why Is Doing A Laravel File Upload So Easy?
Laravel is a robust PHP framework that saves time during the development of web apps.
And you should consider using the framework to execute a file upload functionality when building your next web app.
Here’s why.
It lets you upload large and multiple files
Laravel allows you to execute larger file uploads and store them on systems such as Amazon S3. Using the Laravel AJAX upload and any library (BlueImp JQuery library, for instance), you can implement file upload for large and multiple files. You can resize, crop, or manipulate images. Laravel also allows image manipulation before and after storing the files.
For instance, once the image file has been uploaded, the user will be able to resize, crop, or make several changes to its size before storing it. A Laravel/PHP package used for that process is Intervention Image. A real-life example of this package is being able to make several thumbnails with different sizes for various views (list, icon, grid, and more) in the web app.
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[1] https://laravel.com/docs/9.x#your-first-laravel-project
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