[php] Best Practices for Custom Helpers in Laravel 5

Here's a bash shell script I created to make Laravel 5 facades very quickly.

Run this in your Laravel 5 installation directory.

Call it like this:

make_facade.sh -f <facade_name> -n '<namespace_prefix>'

Example:

make_facade.sh -f helper -n 'App\MyApp'

If you run that example, it will create the directories Facades and Providers under 'your_laravel_installation_dir/app/MyApp'.

It will create the following 3 files and will also output them to the screen:

./app/MyApp/Facades/Helper.php
./app/MyApp/Facades/HelperFacade.php
./app/MyApp/Providers/HelperServiceProvider.php

After it is done, it will display a message similar to the following:

===========================
    Finished
===========================

Add these lines to config/app.php:
----------------------------------
Providers: App\MyApp\Providers\HelperServiceProvider,
Alias: 'Helper' => 'App\MyApp\Facades\HelperFacade',

So update the Providers and Alias list in 'config/app.php'

Run composer -o dumpautoload

The "./app/MyApp/Facades/Helper.php" will originally look like this:

<?php

namespace App\MyApp\Facades;


class Helper
{
    //
}

Now just add your methods in "./app/MyApp/Facades/Helper.php".

Here is what "./app/MyApp/Facades/Helper.php" looks like after I added a Helper function.

<?php

namespace App\MyApp\Facades;

use Request;

class Helper
{
    public function isActive($pattern = null, $include_class = false)
    {
        return ((Request::is($pattern)) ? (($include_class) ? 'class="active"' : 'active' ) : '');
    }
}

This is how it would be called:
===============================

{!!  Helper::isActive('help', true) !!}

This function expects a pattern and can accept an optional second boolean argument.

If the current URL matches the pattern passed to it, it will output 'active' (or 'class="active"' if you add 'true' as a second argument to the function call).

I use it to highlight the menu that is active.

Below is the source code for my script. I hope you find it useful and please let me know if you have any problems with it.

#!/bin/bash

display_syntax(){
    echo ""
    echo "  The Syntax is like this:"
    echo "  ========================"
    echo "      "$(basename $0)" -f <facade_name> -n '<namespace_prefix>'"
    echo ""
    echo "  Example:"
    echo "  ========"
    echo "      "$(basename $0) -f test -n "'App\MyAppDirectory'"
    echo ""
}


if [ $# -ne 4 ]
then
    echo ""
    display_syntax
    exit
else
# Use > 0 to consume one or more arguments per pass in the loop (e.g.
# some arguments don't have a corresponding value to go with it such
# as in the --default example).
    while [[ $# > 0 ]]
    do
        key="$1"
            case $key in
            -n|--namespace_prefix)
            namespace_prefix_in="$2"
            echo ""
            shift # past argument
            ;;
            -f|--facade)
            facade_name_in="$2"
            shift # past argument
            ;;
            *)
                    # unknown option
            ;;
        esac
        shift # past argument or value
    done
fi
echo Facade Name = ${facade_name_in}
echo Namespace Prefix = $(echo ${namespace_prefix_in} | sed -e 's#\\#\\\\#')
echo ""
}


function display_start_banner(){

    echo '**********************************************************'
    echo '*          STARTING LARAVEL MAKE FACADE SCRIPT'
    echo '**********************************************************'
}

#  Init the Vars that I can in the beginning
function init_and_export_vars(){
    echo
    echo "INIT and EXPORT VARS"
    echo "===================="
    #   Substitution Tokens:
    #
    #   Tokens:
    #   {namespace_prefix}
    #   {namespace_prefix_lowerfirstchar}
    #   {facade_name_upcase}
    #   {facade_name_lowercase}
    #


    namespace_prefix=$(echo ${namespace_prefix_in} | sed -e 's#\\#\\\\#')
    namespace_prefix_lowerfirstchar=$(echo ${namespace_prefix_in} | sed -e 's#\\#/#g' -e 's/^\(.\)/\l\1/g')
    facade_name_upcase=$(echo ${facade_name_in} | sed -e 's/\b\(.\)/\u\1/')
    facade_name_lowercase=$(echo ${facade_name_in} | awk '{print tolower($0)}')


#   Filename: {facade_name_upcase}.php  -  SOURCE TEMPLATE
source_template='<?php

namespace {namespace_prefix}\Facades;

class {facade_name_upcase}
{
    //
}
'


#  Filename: {facade_name_upcase}ServiceProvider.php    -   SERVICE PROVIDER TEMPLATE
serviceProvider_template='<?php

namespace {namespace_prefix}\Providers;

use Illuminate\Support\ServiceProvider;
use App;


class {facade_name_upcase}ServiceProvider extends ServiceProvider {

    public function boot()
    {
        //
    }

    public function register()
    {
        App::bind("{facade_name_lowercase}", function()
        {
            return new \{namespace_prefix}\Facades\{facade_name_upcase};
        });
    }

}
'

#  {facade_name_upcase}Facade.php   -   FACADE TEMPLATE
facade_template='<?php

namespace {namespace_prefix}\Facades;

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Facade;

class {facade_name_upcase}Facade extends Facade {

    protected static function getFacadeAccessor() { return "{facade_name_lowercase}"; }
}
'
}


function checkDirectoryExists(){
    if [ ! -d ${namespace_prefix_lowerfirstchar} ]
    then
        echo ""
        echo "Can't find the namespace: "${namespace_prefix_in}
        echo ""
        echo "*** NOTE:"
        echo "           Make sure the namspace directory exists and"
        echo "           you use quotes around the namespace_prefix."
        echo ""
        display_syntax
        exit
    fi
}

function makeDirectories(){
    echo "Make Directories"
    echo "================"
    mkdir -p ${namespace_prefix_lowerfirstchar}/Facades
    mkdir -p ${namespace_prefix_lowerfirstchar}/Providers
    mkdir -p ${namespace_prefix_lowerfirstchar}/Facades
}

function createSourceTemplate(){
    source_template=$(echo "${source_template}" | sed -e 's/{namespace_prefix}/'${namespace_prefix}'/g' -e 's/{facade_name_upcase}/'${facade_name_upcase}'/g' -e 's/{facade_name_lowercase}/'${facade_name_lowercase}'/g')
    echo "Create Source Template:"
    echo "======================="
    echo "${source_template}"
    echo ""
    echo "${source_template}" > ./${namespace_prefix_lowerfirstchar}/Facades/${facade_name_upcase}.php
}

function createServiceProviderTemplate(){
    serviceProvider_template=$(echo "${serviceProvider_template}" | sed -e 's/{namespace_prefix}/'${namespace_prefix}'/g' -e 's/{facade_name_upcase}/'${facade_name_upcase}'/g' -e 's/{facade_name_lowercase}/'${facade_name_lowercase}'/g')
    echo "Create ServiceProvider Template:"
    echo "================================"
    echo "${serviceProvider_template}"
    echo ""
    echo "${serviceProvider_template}" > ./${namespace_prefix_lowerfirstchar}/Providers/${facade_name_upcase}ServiceProvider.php
}

function createFacadeTemplate(){
    facade_template=$(echo "${facade_template}" | sed -e 's/{namespace_prefix}/'${namespace_prefix}'/g' -e 's/{facade_name_upcase}/'${facade_name_upcase}'/g' -e 's/{facade_name_lowercase}/'${facade_name_lowercase}'/g')
    echo "Create Facade Template:"
    echo "======================="
    echo "${facade_template}"
    echo ""
    echo "${facade_template}" > ./${namespace_prefix_lowerfirstchar}/Facades/${facade_name_upcase}Facade.php
}


function serviceProviderPrompt(){
    echo "Providers: ${namespace_prefix_in}\Providers\\${facade_name_upcase}ServiceProvider,"
}

function aliasPrompt(){
    echo "Alias: '"${facade_name_upcase}"' => '"${namespace_prefix_in}"\Facades\\${facade_name_upcase}Facade'," 
}

#
#   END FUNCTION DECLARATIONS
#


###########################
## START RUNNING SCRIPT  ##
###########################

display_start_banner

init_and_export_vars
makeDirectories 
checkDirectoryExists
echo ""

createSourceTemplate
createServiceProviderTemplate
createFacadeTemplate
echo ""
echo "==========================="
echo "  Finished TEST"
echo "==========================="
echo ""
echo "Add these lines to config/app.php:"
echo "----------------------------------"
serviceProviderPrompt
aliasPrompt
echo ""