Laravel 4 Scaffold Command
Automatically generates the files you need to get up and running. Generates a default layout, sets up bootstrap or foundation, prompts for javascript files (options are ember, angular, backbone, underscore, and jquery), creates model, controller, and views, runs migration, updates routes, and seeds your new table with mock data - all in one command.
Installation
Begin by installing this package through Composer. Edit your project's composer.json
file to require jrenton/laravel-scaffold
"require-dev": {
"jrenton/laravel-scaffold": "dev-master"
}
Next, update Composer from the Terminal:
composer update
Once this operation completes, the final step is to add the service provider. Open app/config/app.php
, and add a new item to the providers array.
'Jrenton\LaravelScaffold\LaravelScaffoldServiceProvider'
That's it! You're all set to go. Run the artisan
command from the Terminal to see the new scaffold
command.
php artisan
Configuration
Configure all file directories, class names, view files, whether or not you want repository pattern, which css/js files to download, and you can completely customize view and layout files from within the templates folder! Be sure to run:
php artisan config:publish jrenton/laravel-scaffold
To include the config file within your config folder.
Commands
scaffold
will prompt you for a layout file and models
scaffold:model
will prompt you for models
scaffold:file "filename"
is how you can add multiple models from one file
scaffold:update
searches for changes in the model definitions file (defined in your config file), and updates your models/migrations accordingly.
Templates
This command utilizes template files, so you can specify the format for your views, controller, repository, and tests in a folder called "templates" in your app directory (location provided in your config file - defaults to app/templates).
You can also add your own views, as long as the name in the config file corresponds with the name of the template within the templates folder.
New features
###Keep a running list of your model definitions
There is now a scaffold:update
command and it is very cool! In your config file, you will have an option
to specify a "modelDefinitions" file, and in this you will place all of your model definitions. See below
for an example.
resource = true
namespace = Oxford
University hasMany Department string( name city state homepage ) -nt
Department belongsTo University, hasMany Course string( name description ) number:integer
resource = false
Course belongsTo Department, hasMany Lesson string( name description ) integer( number credits ) -sd
- Resource is whether or not your controller is a resource controller. All controllers will follow what the previous
resource
was set, so you can mix and match. - If namespace is set, then it is applied globally, else you can namespace specific models by prefacing the model name with the namespace.
When you update this file and run php artisan scaffold:update
it will check to see what
has changed and update your models/migrations automatically! It will keep a "cache" file in the
same directory as your models file to track the changes, so DO NOT EDIT IT! This allows the command to
know if anything has been removed.
Models, fields, and relationships can be removed from this file and a migration will be automatically generated to drop the respective model/field/foreign key, along with updating the model.
Model syntax
The syntax for defining models is quite simple. Take a look at some examples:
Book title:string published:datetime
Or you can get fancy and add a relationship:
Book belongsTo Author title:string published:datetime
... and this will automatically add the "author" method to your Book model, and add "author_id" to your migration table. It will also check to see if the author table has been or will be created before book and auto-assign the foreign key.
You can also include namespaces:
BarnesAndNoble\Book belongsTo Author title:string published:datetime
Don't feel like typing everything all proper? That's fine too!
book belongsto author title:string published:datetime
You can also add multiple relationships!
Book belongsTo Author, hasMany Word title:string published:datetime
There are also several options that you can append to a model:
-nt
is an option that sets timestamps to false on the particular model (they default to true)-sd
is an option that sets softDelete to true on the particular model.
Have a lot of properties that are "strings" or "integers" etc? No problem, just group them!
Book belongsTo Author string( title content description publisher ) published:datetime
If you are using the above syntax, please strictly adhere to it (for now).
Video overview of command
Reading is boring... check out this overview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ESSjdUSNMw
This video is a bit out of date now (more awesomeness has been added), but the idea is still the same.
Additional comments
The seeder uses faker in order to randomly generate 10 rows in each table. It will try to determine the type, but you can open the seed file to verify. For more information on Faker: https://github.com/fzaninotto/Faker
Bonus
Want to go even FURTHER with the scaffold process?!?! Setup foreman, add jrenton/laravel-scaffold to the require-dev section, setup an app file to copy from that adds the laravel scaffold service provider, setup a database file that sets up your database to copy from, and finally setup a models.txt file to copy from (example above). Save that scaffold file somewhere convenient.
Then, you can edit your bash file to include a new alias:
alias laravel="foremancreate"
foremancreate(){
foreman build /path/to/htdocs/folder/$1 /path/to/scaffold.json
cd /path/to/htdocs/folder/$1
composer update
php artisan scaffold:file "app/models.txt"
php artisan migrate
php artisan db:seed
}
Then run laravel project-name
and watch as your application is fully built and scaffolded for you :)
Watch a demonstration on youtube
Features to be added for 1.0 release
- -nv option for no views
- -m option for migration only ( pivot tables )
- add field length option ( name:string|40 )
- on delete restrict/cascade/null
- remove model/controller/repository/views/seeds/tests if model is removed
- update model/controller/repository/views/seeds/tests if property is removed
Future ideas
- Add command
scaffold:rollback
to remove any files that were created during the last scaffold update. - Automatically create js file based on js framework that is specified.