Laravel Coding Standards: Best Practice Guidance in 2024

Building reliable and stable applications of the upcoming future of web development demands staying up to date with the latest coding practices. As we get closer to the year 2024, It is necessary for Laravel developers to understand and follow the most recent coding guidelines provided by the Laravel community. In this article, We’ll explore the Laravel coding standards, so that your projects remain effective, scalable, and future-proof in 2024.

Evolution of Laravel Standards

Because of Laravel’s ever-growing developer community, it tends to follow the latest technologies and coding standards. The platform has undergone multiple updates and refinements throughout the time, revealing the changing nature of web development. Since Laravel’s coding standards continue to grow in 2024 to adapt with fresh business trends and technologies, developers can develop simple and readable code via these rules.

PSR Compliance

PHP Standards Recommendations (PSR) is one of the main pillars of the Laravel coding standards. PSRs promote flexibility with various PHP frameworks and libraries, by specifying a set of rules for PHP developers to follow while writing code.

What are the current and future PSR?

Current PSR Standards:

PSR-1: Basic Coding Standard – Defines essential coding rules, such as those regarding file and class names. To follow PSR-1 we should use some basic coding standards: 

• File must use only <?php and <?= tags.
• Files must use only UTF-8 without BOM for PHP code.
• Files should either declare symbols (classes, functions, constants, etc.) or cause side-effects (eg. generate output, change .ini settings, etc.) but should not do both.
• Namespaces and classes must follow an “autoloading” PSR-4 (PSRO is deprecated!)
• Class names must be declared in StudlyCaps. Eg. 

class ClassName {
    // ...
}

Class constants must be declared in all uppercase with underscore separators. Eg.

class ClassName {
    const CONSTANT_NAME = 'value';
}

Method names must be declared in camelCase. Eg.

class ClassName {
    public function methodName() {
        // ...
    }
}

PSR-2: Coding Style Guide – Specifies the usage of whitespace, brackets, and indentation in coding style features. Below are the guidelines to follow before using PSR-2 :

• Use 4 spaces for indentation, not tabs.
• Opening braces for classes and methods should be on a new line.
• Control structure keywords (like if, else, and while) should be followed by a single space and opening braces should be on the same line.
• Function and method arguments should not have a space before the opening parenthesis and should have a space after each comma.

Eg code :

class ClassName
{
    public function methodName($arg1, $arg2)
    {
        if ($arg1 === $arg2) {
            return true;
        } else {
            return false;
        }
    }
}

PSR-4: Autoloading Standard – Provides guidelines for autoloading classes in PHP projects. It Requires some steps to follow: 

• A one-to-one relationship between class names and file paths.
• Namespace declarations to match the directory structure.
• Class names to match the file names (with the .php extension).

Eg code :

// File: src/ExampleNamespace/ExampleClass.php
namespace ExampleNamespace;
class ExampleClass
{
    // ...
}


// Usage
require 'vendor/autoload.php';
use ExampleNamespace\ExampleClass;
$example = new ExampleClass();

PSR-7: HTTP Message Interface – Describes HTTP message user interfaces, including request and response formats.

PSR-12: Extended Coding Style Guide – Building upon PSR-2, which provides clearer coding style regulations. 

Future PSR Standards:

PSR-18: HTTP Client : is an upcoming specification with the goal to standardise HTTP client interfaces.

PSR-19: Event Dispatcher: This idea desires to regulate interfaces for event dispatchers.

By ensuring consistency, accessibility, and unity among PHP projects, these standards support best practices and develop better collaboration within the PHP community. 

PHP Version Compatibility

Laravel’s compatibility standards develop along with PHP. In 2024, Laravel developers should give top priority to maintain compatibility with the most recent stable versions of PHP, focusing on the better performance and new features that follow every new update. By taking advantage of the latest PHP versions, developers could improve the performance, security, and flexibility of their Laravel applications.

Conclusion

As we explore the software development field in 2024, following Laravel coding standards which is essential to build highly qualified and stable applications. Laravel developers may further improve their skills while establishing robust applications that remain effective for a long time via PSR compliance, adopting coding guidelines, giving top priority to the latest PHP version, and utilising detailed testing methods. Together we can welcome the Laravel standards and get started  to develop resources that are creative and of the finest quality.