Laravel - Using the Repository Pattern

Question

I am trying to learn the repository pattern, and seem to have got myself a tad confused with how I can use this repository pattern when eager loading relationships and keep db logic out of my controller.

A quick overview of my repository / application structure.

app/
  Acme/
    Repositories/
      RepositoryServiceProvider.php
      Product/
        EloquentProduct.php
        ProductInterface.php
      Category/
        EloquentCategory.php
        CategoryInterface.php

Example ProductInterface.php

<?php namespace GD\Repositories\Product;

interface ProductInterface
{
    public function all();

    public function find($id);

    public function findBySlug($slug);
}

Example CategoryInterface.php

<?php namespace GD\Repositories\Category;

interface CategoryInterface
{
    public function all();

    public function find($id);

    public function findBySlug($slug);
}

Ok, so the easy part is using DI to inject model dependencies into the controller.

listing all categories with associated products is more difficult as I am no longer working with an eloquent model. I am working with an interface which has not exposed all the eloquent methods.

This won't work without me implementing a with method within my EloquentCategory class...

public function show($slug)
{
  return Response::json($this->category->findBySlug($slug)->with('products'), 200);
}

Should I create a separate service class to glue the two repositories together? e.g. allowing the following

public function __construct(ShopService $shop)
{
  $this->shop = $shop;
}

public function show($slug)
{
  return Response::json( $this->shop->getProductsInCategory($slug), 200 );
}

Or alternatively, should I be implementing the with method in my Category Repository?

public function with($relation)
{
  return Category::with($relation);
}

Finally, is my understanding of the usage of the Repository Pattern Correct?

Answer 1

You are over thinking, repository is just a link/bridge between your controller and model and hence controller uses repository class instead of the model directly and in that repository you may declare your methods using the model from there, for example:

<?php namespace GD\Repositories\Category;

interface CategoryInterFace{

    public function all();

    public function getCategoriesWith($with);

    public function find($id);
}

Now implement the interface in the repository class:

<?php namespace GD\Repositories\Category;

use \EloquentCategory as Cat; // the model
class CategoryRepository implements CategoryInterFace {
    public function all()
    {
        return Cat::all();
    }

    public function getCategoriesWith($with)
    {
        return Cat::with($with)->get();
    }

    public function find($id)
    {
        return Cat::find($id):
    }
}

To use it in your controller:

<?php

use GD\Repositories\Category\CategoryInterFace;

class CategoryController extends BaseController {

    public function __construct(CategoryInterFace $category)
    {
        $this->cat = $category;
    }

    public function getCatWith()
    {
        $catsProd = $this->cat->getCategoriesWith('products');
        return $catsProd;
    }

    // use any method from your category
    public function getAll()
    {
        $categories = $this->cat->all();

        return View::make('category.index', compact('categories'));
    }

}

Note: Omitted the IoC binding of the repository because this is not your problem and you know that.

Update: I've written an article here: LARAVEL – USING REPOSITORY PATTERN.

Answer 2

There is a really easy way to do this and it is explored in depth in this link

http://heera.it/laravel-repository-pattern#.U6XhR1cn-f4

I was looking for the exact solution and it is working well so far

so the idea for you would be to declare this in your repository code

public function __construct(\Category $category)
{
    $this->category = $category;
} 
public function getAllUsers()
{
    return $this->category->all();
}

public function __call($method, $args)
{
    return call_user_func_array([$this->category, $method], $args);
}

forcing the Model to be called when some functions are missing