Laravel 10 - Class "PhotoController" does not exist

Question

I'm using Laravel 10, this code is in my web.php file

...
Route::resource('photos', PhotoController::class);
....

and it produce this list of routes:

photos ............................ photos.index › Admin\PhotoController@index  
photos ............................ photos.store › Admin\PhotoController@store  
photos/create ..................... photos.create › Admin\PhotoController@create  
photos/{photo} .................... photos.show › Admin\PhotoController@show  
photos/{photo} .................... photos.update › Admin\PhotoController@update  
photos/{photo} .................... photos.destroy › Admin\PhotoController@destroy  
photos/{photo}/edit ............... photos.edit › Admin\PhotoController@edit 

it all works fine. Now, I want to protect with authentication all this page, and i use this code

Route::prefix('admin')->middleware('auth')->group(function () {
   Route::get('photos', PhotoController::class);
});

I got this error:

  Target class [PhotoController] does not exist.

so i add: ->namespace('App\Http\Controllers\Admin')

Route::prefix('admin')->namespace('App\Http\Controllers\Admin')->middleware('auth')->group(function () {
   Route::resource('photos', PhotoController::class);
});

now the site works, but the command php artisan route:list says:

 Class "PhotoController" does not exist 

I have to specify:

use App\Http\Controllers\Admin\PhotoController;

The question is.. which is the correct way? use namespace or indicate it with ->namespace()?

Answer 1

The best practice is to import the namespace at the top

use App\Http\Controllers\Admin\PhotoController;

that is why Laravel shifted from the old string syntax (It's still supported but no longer best practice for Laravel team):

Route::get('/action', 'SomeController@action')

to the new syntax (supported since Larave 8):

use App\Http\Controllers\Path\SomeController;

Route::get('/action', [SomeController::class, 'action'])

Check Laravel controllers documentation examples here and here.

The benefits of this are:

• It's clear and more readable
• Ability to use controller namespace so there will be no need to ->namespace('...') chaining or using it like 'API\SomeController@....