The basic architecture of Laravel applications

As mentioned previously, Laravel is an MVC framework for the development of modern web applications. It is a software architecture standard that separates the representation of information from users' interaction with it. The architectural standard that it has adopted is not so new; it has been around since the mid-1970s. It remains current, and a number of frameworks still use it today.

You can read more about the MVC pattern at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model-view-controller.

Laravel directory structure

Now, let's look at how this pattern is implemented within an application with Laravel:

1. Open the VS Code editor.
2. If this is the first time you are opening VS Code, click on the top menu and navigate to File | Open.
3. Search for the chapter-01 folder, and click Open.
4. Expand the app folder at the left-hand side of VS Code.

The application files are as follows:

Laravel root folder

The phpdocker folder and docker-compose.yml files are not part of the Laravel framework; we added these files manually, earlier in this chapter.

The MVC flow

In a very basic MVC workflow, when a user interacts with our application, the steps in the following screenshot are performed. Imagine a simple web application about books, with a search input field. When the user types a book name and presses Enter, the following flow cycle will occur:

MVC flow

The MVC is represented by the following folders and files:

MVC Architecture	Application Path		File
Model	app/		User.php
View	resources/views		welcome.blade.php
Controller	app/Http/Controllers		Auth/AuthController.php Auth/PasswordController.php

Note that the application models are at the root of the app folder, and the application already has at least one file for MVC implementation.

Also note that the app folder contains all of the core files for our application. The other folders have very intuitive names, such as the following:

Bootstrap	Cache, autoload, and bootstrap applications
Config	Application's configuration
Database	Factory, migrations, and seeds
Public	JavaScript, CSS, fonts, and images
Resource	Views, SASS/LESS, and localization
Storage	This folder has separated apps, frameworks, and logs
Tests	Unit tests using PHPunit
Vendor	Composer dependencies

Now, let's see how things work in the Laravel structure.