Exercise - a Route With Multiple Parameters

In this exercise, we will define and utilize a multi-parameter route in our Laravel app. The exercise requirements are:

Create a Laravel project.
Define a posts table that has id, slug, and other columns.
Define a model that represents a posts table.
Define a route that displays a single post and has two parameters: {id} and {slug} .
Fetch a single record whose id and slug columns match the {id} and {slug} parameters.
Create a view that renders the HTML code.
Display the record in a browser.

Creating a Laravel project

In the terminal, create a new Laravel project:

laravel new laravel-multiple-parameters

Choose the default project options and opt for a MySQL database.

Navigate to the project's folder:

cd laravel-multiple-parameters

And start a local server with:

composer run dev

Or with:

php artisan serve

Creating a table

Open a new terminal window and create a migration that creates a posts table:

php artisan make:migration create_posts_table

Creating a migration for the posts table.

Open the newly created migration file (ending with the create_posts_table.php wording). Modify the prefilled Schema::create() function and add the slug, title, and post_text columns. The entire Schema::create() function now looks like:

Schema::create('posts', function (Blueprint $table) {
    $table->id();
    $table->string('slug');
    $table->string('title');
    $table->text('post_text');
    $table->timestamps();
});

Running a migration

Run the migration to insert the table into a database:

php artisan migrate

Running the migration that inserts the posts table into the database.

Inserting sample records

To insert a few sample records into the posts table, start the tinker tool in the terminal:

php artisan tinker

And paste and execute the following code:

DB::table('posts')->insert([
    [
        'slug' => 'first-post',
        'title' => 'This is the first post',
        'post_text' => "This is the first post's sample text.",
        'created_at' => now(),
        'updated_at' => now(),
    ],
    [
        'slug' => 'second-post',
        'title' => 'This is the second post',
        'post_text' => "This is the second post's sample text.",
        'created_at' => now(),
        'updated_at' => now(),
    ],
    [
        'slug' => 'third-post',
        'title' => 'This is the third post',
        'post_text' => "This is the third post's sample text.",
        'created_at' => now(),
        'updated_at' => now(),
    ],
]);
exit;

Creating a model

To create a Post model that represents the posts table, in the terminal, we write:

php artisan make:model Post

Creating a Post model for the posts table in Laravel.

Defining a route with multiple parameters

To define a route that has two parameters, open the web.php file and paste the following code:

<?php

use App\Models\Post;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Route;

Route::get('/showpost/{id}/{slug}', function (string $id, string $slug) {
    $myPost = Post::where('id', $id)
        ->where('slug', $slug)
        ->firstOrFail();
    return view('postview', ['myPost' => $myPost]);
});

This code defines a /showpost/{id}/{slug} route with two parameters, {id} and {slug}. The code also defines a callable that receives the parameters' values and uses them to fetch a single record from a posts table. The code uses a Post model to query for a record whose id column matches the {id} parameter value and whose slug column matches the {slug} parameter value. Then, the code passes the fetched record to a view and returns/displays a view.

Creating a view

To create a view (a blade template file) called, for example, postview, in the terminal, we write and execute:

php artisan make:view postview

Creating a template file that displays the fetched record.

Open the newly created resources/views/postview.blade.php file and paste the following code:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
    <title>Laravel Exercise - Multiple Parameters</title>
</head>
<body>
    <h1>Laravel Exercise</h1>
    <p>Showing a single record whose id and slug columns match the {id} and {slug} parameters:</p>
    <h2>{{ $myPost->id }}</h2>
    <h3>{{ $myPost->slug }}</h3>
    <h4>{{ $myPost->title }}</h4>
    <p>{{ $myPost->post_text }}</p>
</body>
</html>

This code uses several blade echo {{ }} statements to print the record's column values. The record is stored inside the $myPost variable, and individual columns are accessed and printed out using the {{ $myPost->column_name }} syntax.

Showing the result in a browser

When we access the local http://127.0.0.1:8000/showpost/2/second-post address in a browser, we see the following output:

Browser showing a single record fetched by id and slug columns using route parameters.

If we access the route with different parameters, as in the http://127.0.0.1:8000/showpost/3/third-post URL, we see a different record being fetched from a database and displayed in our browser: