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Inside this article we will see the concept of generate unique slug in laravel 8. It will be very easy to get the concept and implement in laravel 8 application.

We can use this same concept of slug generation with other versions of laravel as well. Inside this tutorial also we will understand how to generate unique slug in laravel using eloquent model events.

Let’s get started.

Laravel Installation

We will create laravel project using composer. So, please make sure your system should have composer installed. If not, may be this article will help you to Install composer in system.

Here is the command to create a laravel project-

composer create-project --prefer-dist laravel/laravel blog

To start the development server of Laravel –

php artisan serve

URL: http://127.0.0.1:8000

Assuming laravel already installed inside your system.

Create Database & Connect

To create a database, either we can create via Manual tool of PhpMyadmin or by means of a mysql command.

CREATE DATABASE laravel_app;

To connect database with application, Open .env file from application root. Search for DB_ and update your details.

DB_CONNECTION=mysql
DB_HOST=127.0.0.1
DB_PORT=3306
DB_DATABASE=laravel_app
DB_USERNAME=root
DB_PASSWORD=root

Create Model & Migration

Open project into terminal and run this command to create model and migration file.

Model file is one which helps application to communicate with database table and migration file creates schema of table.

$ php artisan make:model Product -m

This command create two different files – a Model file and a Migration file. -m is for migration file.

Proudct.php model file /app/Models
2021_03_15_030914_create_products_table.php Migration file at /database/migrations.

Open {timestamp}_create_products_table.php migration file and write this update code.

<?php

use Illuminate\Database\Migrations\Migration;
use Illuminate\Database\Schema\Blueprint;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Schema;

class CreateProductsTable extends Migration
{
    /**
     * Run the migrations.
     *
     * @return void
     */
    public function up()
    {
        Schema::create('products', function (Blueprint $table) {
            $table->id();
            $table->string("name", 70);
            $table->string("slug", 100)->nullable();
            $table->text("description")->nullable();
        });
    }

    /**
     * Reverse the migrations.
     *
     * @return void
     */
    public function down()
    {
        Schema::dropIfExists('products');
    }
}

We are creating a products table with columns – name, slug & description

Migrate Migration

Back to terminal and run this artisan migrate command to run all pending migrations.

$ php artisan migrate

Open Product.php and write this updated code.

<?php

namespace App\Models;

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Factories\HasFactory;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
use Illuminate\Support\Str;

class Product extends Model
{
    use HasFactory;

    protected $fillable = [
        'name', 'slug', 'description'
    ];

    public $timestamps = false;

    /**

     * Boot the model.

     */

    protected static function boot()
    {
        parent::boot();

        static::created(function ($product) {

            $product->slug = $product->createSlug($product->name);

            $product->save();
        });
    }

    /** 
     * Write code on Method
     *
     * @return response()
     */
    private function createSlug($name)
    {
        if (static::whereSlug($slug = Str::slug($name))->exists()) {

            $max = static::whereName($name)->latest('id')->skip(1)->value('slug');

            if (isset($max[-1]) && is_numeric($max[-1])) {

                return preg_replace_callback('/(\d+)$/', function ($mathces) {

                    return $mathces[1] + 1;
                }, $max);
            }
            return "{$slug}-2";
        }
        return $slug;
    }
}

whereSlug is dynamic method created from the name of column. where{ColumnName}. whereName() is for name column.

Here, we are checking that, slug should be unique of each inserted product.

Examples for some slug

laravel-8-product-upload

laravel-8-product-upload-2

laravel-8-product-upload-3

laravel-8-product-upload-4

Create Controller

Open terminal and run this artisan command to create controller file.

$ php artisan make:controller ProductController

It will create a file ProductController.php at /app/Http/Controllers folder.

Open controller file and write this code into it.

<?php

namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use App\Models\Product;

class ProductController extends Controller
{
    public function index()
    {
        $product = Product::create([
            "name" => "Laravel 8 Sample Product",
            "description" => "Sample data"
        ]);

        dd($product);
    }
}

Create & Save product into database table “products”.
Automatically the boot method what we have created in Product model will be used.
Product::create(), we have passed name and description value and also slug value automatically comes from model and will insert into table.

Create Route

Open web.php from /routes folder.

use App\Http\Controllers\ProductController;

//...

Route::get('product', [ProductController::class, 'index']);

//...

Application Testing

Run this command into project terminal to start development server,

php artisan serve

URL – http://127.0.0.1:8000/product

When you hit this url multiple times, it will insert new product rows inside products table. One thing we can notice is here about generated slug value. It is unique for all rows.

We hope this article helped you to learn about Generate Unique Slug in Laravel 8 in a very detailed way.

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