Currently, Laravel is the most renowned PHP framework, boasting of a large developer community; several open-source packages, such as Cashier, Sanctum, Scout, and Telescope; and a host of paid platforms, e.g., Laravel Forge, Envoyer, and Vapor. Laravel Forge & Envoyer ably supports deployment and use of Laravel production-based apps.
Introducing Cloudinary’s Laravel SDK. Learn the benefits and capabilities of the Laravel PHP framework and the way to upload to and transform files.
The sections below walk you through the process of setting up Laravel file uploads.
Set Up a Laravel Project
Install Composer and PHP on your development or production machine and then run this command:
Go to the
upload
directory and rename theenv.example
file to.env
.Run the project with the command
php artisan serve
.
Your Laravel project is now up and running.
Set Up the Mechanics for File Uploads
Create a file-upload controller (
FileUpload Controller
) in your project:Open the FileUploadController.php file and add a method for displaying the upload form:
Create an
upload.blade.php
file in theresources/views
directory and populate the file with the code below:<!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <meta charset="utf-8"> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> <title>Laravel File Upload</title> <!-- Fonts --> <link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Nunito:200,600" rel="stylesheet"> <!-- Styles --> <style> html, body { background-color: #fff; color: #636b6f; font-family: 'Nunito', sans-serif; font-weight: 200; height: 100vh; margin: 0; } .full-height { height: 100vh; } .flex-center { align-items: center; display: flex; justify-content: center; } .position-ref { position: relative; } .top-right { position: absolute; right: 10px; top: 18px; } .content { text-align: center; } .title { font-size: 84px; } .links > a { color: #636b6f; padding: 0 25px; font-size: 13px; font-weight: 600; letter-spacing: .1rem; text-decoration: none; text-transform: uppercase; } .m-b-md { margin-bottom: 30px; } </style> </head> <body> <div class="flex-center position-ref full-height"> <div class="content"> <div class="title m-b-md"> Laravel File Upload </div> @if ($message = Session::get('success')) <div class="alert alert-success alert-block"> <button type="button" class="close" data-dismiss="alert">×</button> <strong>{{ $message }}</strong> </div> @endif <div class="links"> <form action="/upload" method="POST" enctype="multipart/form-data"> @csrf <div class="row"> <div class="col-md-6"> <input type="file" name="file" class="form-control"> </div> <div class="col-md-6"> <button type="submit" class="btn btn-success">Upload a File</button> </div> </div> </form> </div> </div> </div> </body> </html>
The code above displays the form along with a confirmation message if the upload succeeded. Concurrently, the file-upload controller posts the form data to a
/upload
route in theroutes/web.php
file. Note: The related code will be shown later in this post.Go to the
routes/web.php
directory and add two routes: one to display the form and the other to process the file upload:
Now reload the app and go to the /upload
route. This page is displayed:
Process the Uploads
Next, ensure that uploaded files are stored though the form by adding a storeUploads
method to the FileUploadController.php
file, as follows:
…. public function storeUploads(Request $request) { $request->file('file')->store('images'); return back() ->with('success', 'File uploaded successfully'); }
The code above grabs the file uploaded through the POST request, creates on your local service an images
directory, and stores the file there.
Test it: upload a file for your app and see if the file is in the storage/app/images
directory.
Note: For more details on a recently uploaded file, call these methods:
$fileName = $request->file('file')->getClientOriginalName(); $extension = $request->file('file')->extension(); $mime = $request->file('file')->getMimeType(); $clientSize = $request->file('file')->getSize();
Set Up File Uploads to Cloudinary
Uploading files to the local disk and serving them yourself is rife with limitations, a major one being the lack of scalability. Best to outsource to an external service like Cloudinary, which, besides upload and storage capabilities, offers features for manipulating and managing media, including images, videos, audio, and other emerging types.
To enable file uploads to Cloudinary:
Sign up for a free Cloudinary account, log in, and note your cloud name and API keys from the dashboard.
Install Cloudinary’s Laravel SDK:
Note: Please follow the instructions in the #Installation section. Ensure you publish the config file and add your credentials to the
.env
file of your app.Rewrite the file-upload controller (
FileUploadController.php
) for straight uploads to the cloud:<?php namespace App\Http\Controllers; use Illuminate\Http\Request; class FileUploadController extends Controller { public function showUploadForm() { return view('upload'); } public function storeUploads(Request $request) { $response = cloudinary()->upload($request->file('file')->getRealPath())->getSecurePath(); dd($response); return back() ->with('success', 'File uploaded successfully'); } }
The code above uploads the file straight to your Cloudinary account and returns the image URL by utilizing the
cloudinary()
helper function. We didn’t have to use theCloudinary
Facade.
Note: Be sure to replace <your-cloud-name>
, <your-api-keys>
, and <your-api-secret>
with their values from your dashboard. Furthermore, for security while in production environments, always load those credentials from the environment variables. That is, invoke the config method to load the credentials before uploading the file to Cloudinary. dd($response)
then dumps the response returned from Cloudinary for the uploaded file. Here’s an example of a response:
You can now store the returned URL in the database, and display the image to users anywhere in your app.
Leverage More Cloudinary Capabilities
Uploading files barely scratches the surface of media management. Cloudinary helps you administer the entire spectrum of your media’s lifecycle, end to end, from upload and transformation to optimization and delivery. Do check it out.
Want to Learn More About File Uploads?
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- Uploading PHP Files and Rich Media the Easy Way
- AJAX File Upload - Quick Tutorial & Time Saving Tips
- Impressed by WhatsApp technology? Clone WhatsApp Technology to Build a File Upload Android App
- Direct Image Uploads From the Browser to the Cloud With jQuery
- File Upload With Angular to Cloudinary
- Uploading Vue Files and Rich Media in Two Easy Steps
- Node.js File Upload To a Local Server Or to the Cloud
- Laravel File Upload to a Local Server Or to the Cloud
- JavaScript File Upload in Two Simple Step