Laravel is a free, open-source PHP web framework following the MVC (Model-View-Controller) architectural pattern.

Key features:

• Eloquent ORM for database operations
• Blade templating for views
• Artisan CLI for commands
• Authentication & authorization
• Database migrations
• Routing system
• Queue management
• Event broadcasting
• Testing support

MVC (Model-View-Controller) separates application logic:

• Model: Data logic and database interactions (Eloquent)
• View: Presentation layer (Blade templates)
• Controller: Processes requests, coordinates Model and View

Flow: Route → Controller → Model → Controller → View → Response

Composer is PHP's dependency manager. Laravel uses it to manage packages via composer.json.

composer install           # Install dependencies
composer update            # Update dependencies  
composer dump-autoload     # Regenerate PSR-4 autoload
composer require package   # Add new package

Routes are defined in routes/web.php for web routes and routes/api.php for API routes. Laravel supports various HTTP verbs:

Route::get('/users', [UserController::class, 'index']);
Route::post('/users', [UserController::class, 'store']);
Route::put('/users/{id}', [UserController::class, 'update']);
Route::delete('/users/{id}', [UserController::class, 'destroy']);

// Resource route (creates all CRUD routes)
Route::resource('posts', PostController::class);

Route parameters capture segments of the URI and pass them to your controller. There are required and optional parameters:

// Required parameter
Route::get('/user/{id}', function ($id) {
    return "User ID: $id";
});

// Optional parameter
Route::get('/user/{name?}', function ($name = 'Guest') {
    return "Hello, $name";
});

// Regular expression constraint
Route::get('/user/{id}', function ($id) {
    //
})->where('id', '[0-9]+');

Resource controllers provide seven methods for CRUD operations:

// Generate: php artisan make:controller PostController --resource
// Route: Route::resource('posts', PostController::class);

• index() - List resources
• create() - Show creation form
• store() - Store new resource
• show($id) - Display specific resource
• edit($id) - Show edit form
• update($id) - Update resource
• destroy($id) - Delete resource

Eloquent is Laravel's Active Record ORM. Each database table has a corresponding Model.

Advantages:

• Simple, expressive syntax
• Relationship management
• Automatic timestamps
• Soft deletes
• Query scopes
• Mutators/accessors
• Model events