Best way of using Ajax in Laravel

Laravel is a popular PHP framework that makes building web applications easy and efficient. One of the most common tasks in web development is making asynchronous requests to the server to update part of a page without having to refresh the entire page. This is where Ajax comes in. Ajax allows us to send and receive data asynchronously without interrupting the user's experience. In this article, we will explore how to use Ajax in Laravel.

What is Ajax?

Ajax stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. It is a set of web development techniques that allow web pages to be updated asynchronously by exchanging data with a web server in the background. In simple terms, Ajax allows us to update parts of a web page without having to refresh the entire page.

Using Ajax in Laravel

Laravel provides a convenient way to handle Ajax requests through its built-in support for jQuery. Laravel's Blade templating engine makes it easy to write JavaScript code directly in the HTML template. Here are the steps to use Ajax in Laravel:

Step 1: Setup Routes

To handle Ajax requests, we need to define routes that respond to these requests. We can define these routes in the routes/web.php file. For example, if we want to handle an Ajax request that updates a user's profile picture, we can define a route like this:

Route::post('/update-profile-picture', [ProfileController::class, 'updateProfilePicture'])->name('updateProfilePicture');

Step 2: Create a Form

Next, we need to create a form that sends an Ajax request to the server when the user submits it. We can use Laravel's Blade templating engine to create the form. For example:

<form id="updateProfilePictureForm" action="{{ route('updateProfilePicture') }}" method="POST" enctype="multipart/form-data">
    @csrf
    <input type="file" name="profile_picture" id="profilePicture">
    <button type="submit">Update Profile Picture</button>
</form>

In this example, we have created a form that allows the user to upload a new profile picture. We have also included a CSRF token to protect against cross-site request forgery attacks.

Step 3: Write JavaScript Code

Next, we need to write some JavaScript code that handles the Ajax request when the user submits the form. We can use jQuery's ajax() function to send the request. For example:

$(document).on('submit', '#updateProfilePictureForm', function(e) {
    e.preventDefault();

    var formData = new FormData(this);

    $.ajax({
        url: $(this).attr('action'),
        type: 'POST',
        data: formData,
        processData: false,
        contentType: false,
        success: function(data) {
            // Handle success response
        },
        error: function(xhr, textStatus, errorThrown) {
            // Handle error response
        }
    });
});

In this example, we have attached an event listener to the form's submit event. When the user submits the form, the event listener prevents the default form submission behaviour and creates a new FormData object from the form. We then use jQuery's ajax() function to send the form data to the server. The processData and contentType options are set to false ensure that the form data is sent as-is without any processing by jQuery.

Step 4: Handle the Request

Finally, we need to handle the Ajax request on the server-side. We can do this in the ProfileController by defining the updateProfilePicture method. For example:

public function updateProfilePicture(Request $request)
{
    $profilePicture = $request->file('profile_picture');

    // Save profile picture to disk

and that's it. I hope you enjoyed the tutorial.