What is Routing in Laravel? A Complete Guide

When building a modern web application, one of the most fundamental aspects is routing. In simple terms, routing is the process of defining how your application responds to a particular request from a user.

Laravel, being one of the most popular PHP frameworks, offers a powerful and elegant routing system that makes it easy to manage and customize how your web application handles requests.

In this article, we’ll dive deep into what routing is, how it works in Laravel, the different types of routes, and some best practices.

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🔹 What is Routing?

Routing is the mechanism that connects a URL request to a specific piece of code in your application.

For example:

• If a user visits https://example.com/about, the router decides which controller or function should run and return the correct response (like the “About Us” page).

In Laravel, all routes are defined inside the routes/ folder, and the most commonly used file is routes/web.php.

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🔹 Types of Routes in Laravel

Laravel provides different types of routes for different needs:

1. Basic Route

A simple route that returns a string or view.

// routes/web.php
Route::get('/hello', function () {
    return 'Hello, Laravel!';
});

Visiting /hello will display Hello, Laravel!.

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2. Route with View

You can directly return a view without a controller.

Route::view('/welcome', 'welcome');

This maps the URL /welcome to the welcome.blade.php view.

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3. Route with Parameters

Routes can accept dynamic values.

Route::get('/user/{id}', function ($id) {
    return "User ID is " . $id;
});

Visiting /user/5 will display User ID is 5.

You can also make parameters optional:

Route::get('/post/{slug?}', function ($slug = 'default-post') {
    return $slug;
});

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4. Named Routes

Naming routes makes it easy to generate URLs dynamically.

Route::get('/profile', function () {
    return "This is your profile.";
})->name('profile');

You can generate a URL in Blade or controller:

url()->route('profile');
route('profile');

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5. Route Groups

Group routes together for middleware, prefix, or namespace.

Route::prefix('admin')->group(function () {
    Route::get('/dashboard', function () {
        return "Admin Dashboard";
    });

    Route::get('/users', function () {
        return "Manage Users";
    });
});

Now, the routes become:

• /admin/dashboard
• /admin/users

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6. Route Middleware

You can protect routes with middleware (like authentication).

Route::middleware(['auth'])->group(function () {
    Route::get('/dashboard', function () {
        return "Welcome to Dashboard";
    });
});

Only authenticated users can access this route.

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7. Controller Routes

Instead of defining logic in the route file, you can connect routes to a controller.

use App\Http\Controllers\UserController;

Route::get('/users', [UserController::class, 'index']);
Route::post('/users', [UserController::class, 'store']);

This makes your code more organized and reusable.

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8. Resource Routes

For CRUD operations, Laravel provides a shortcut:

Route::resource('products', ProductController::class);

This automatically generates routes for:

• index → GET /products
• create → GET /products/create
• store → POST /products
• show → GET /products/{id}
• edit → GET /products/{id}/edit
• update → PUT /products/{id}
• destroy → DELETE /products/{id}

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9. API Routes

Laravel also provides a separate file for API routes: routes/api.php.

Route::get('/products', [ProductController::class, 'apiIndex']);

These routes are stateless and usually return JSON responses.

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🔹 Route List Command

To see all the routes defined in your application, run:

php artisan route:list

This will show you:

• HTTP method
• URI (path)
• Controller/method
• Route name

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🔹 Why is Routing Important in Laravel?

• Organizes your application → clean and structured code.
• Manages URLs dynamically → avoids hardcoding.
• Enhances security → via middleware.
• Scales easily → group and organize routes.

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🔹 Best Practices for Laravel Routing

1. Keep logic out of routes – use controllers.
2. Use named routes for better maintainability.
3. Group routes with common prefixes or middleware.
4. Use resource routes for CRUD operations.
5. Leverage middleware for authentication, logging, etc.

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🔹 Conclusion

Routing in Laravel is one of the framework’s strongest features. It allows developers to easily define how an application should respond to incoming requests, whether it’s a simple string response, a dynamic view, or a full controller method.

By mastering Laravel routing, you can build scalable, secure, and well-structured applications.