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Mastering Laravel Policies: A Step-

by-Step Guide
ArjunAmrutiya · Follow
3 min read · Sep 18, 2023

88

Introduction:
When building web applications, security is a paramount concern. Laravel, a
popular PHP web framework, offers robust tools to manage authorization
and access control. Laravel Policies are one such tool that helps developers
streamline authorization logic and keep their code clean and maintainable.
In this comprehensive guide, we’ll delve into Laravel Policies, step by step,
covering their functionality and how to use them effectively.

What are Laravel Policies?

Laravel Policies provide a convenient way to authorize user actions on
resources. These resources could be Eloquent models or any other objects
in your application. Policies help centralize authorization logic and make it
easy to manage access control rules. Instead of scattering authorization
checks throughout your codebase, you can encapsulate them within
dedicated policy classes.

Step 1: Create a Policy

To get started with Laravel Policies, you first need to create a policy class.
Laravel’s artisan command-line tool simplifies this process. Open your
terminal and run the following command:

php artisan make:policy PostPolicy

This command generates a PostPolicy class in the app/Policies directory.

Step 2: Define Policy Methods

Inside the PostPolicy class, you can define methods that correspond to
different actions users can perform on posts. For example, you might create
methods like view , create , update , and delete . These methods should
return a boolean value indicating whether the user is authorized to perform
the action. Here's an example of a view method:

public function view(User $user, Post $post)

{
return $user->id === $post->user_id;
}
This method checks if the user viewing the post is the same user who created
it.

Step 3: Register Policies

Next, you need to register your policies in the AuthServiceProvider . This class
is located in the app/Providers directory. In the AuthServiceProvider , you'll
find a policies property where you can map your models to their respective
policies. For example:

protected $policies = [
Post::class => PostPolicy::class,
];

This mapping tells Laravel to use the PostPolicy for authorization checks on
Post models.

Step 4: Use Policies in Controllers

Now that you’ve created a policy and registered it, you can use it in your
controllers to authorize user actions. Here’s an example of how to use the
authorize method within a controller:

public function show(Post $post)

{
$this->authorize('view', $post);

// Continue with displaying the post.

}

The authorize method checks if the current user is authorized to view the
post using the view method defined in the PostPolicy .

Step 5: Blade Directives

Laravel also provides Blade directives for authorizing actions directly in your
views. For instance, you can use @can to conditionally display content based
on user authorization. Here's an example:

@can('update', $post)
<a href="{{ route('posts.edit', $post) }}">Edit Post</a>
@endcan

This code only displays the “Edit Post” link if the user is authorized to update
the $post .

Step 6: Additional Policy Features

Laravel Policies offer more advanced features, such as defining policies for
actions that don’t correspond directly to CRUD operations, using gates for
more complex authorization logic, and handling authorization exceptions.
You can explore these features in the Laravel documentation for more in-
depth understanding.

Conclusion
Laravel Policies provide an elegant solution for managing authorization in
your web applications. By encapsulating authorization logic in policy classes,
you can keep your code clean, maintainable, and secure. Following this
step-by-step guide, you can easily integrate Laravel Policies into your
projects and enhance the security of your web applications.

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Laravel Laravel Policies Authorization Php Frameworks Laravel Security

Written by ArjunAmrutiya Follow

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👋 Hey there! I'm Arjun Amrutiya, a passionate web developer and blogger who
loves all things PHP, Laravel and Vue.js. Welcome to my Medium account!
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