What’s New in Laravel 9 Upgrade: Deep Dive into The Latest Version

Laravel is a go-to framework for PHP enthusiasts, developers, and companies. And Laravel 9 is now available! The latest version offers a range of improved features and opens up new possibilities for Laravel development projects. This popular platform is expected to remain one of the most sought-after frameworks of choice.

Find out all you need to know about what’s new in Laravel 9 and how it can be upgraded from 8 with this detailed guide. With its extensive updates, there has never been a better time to take advantage of the versatile capabilities that Laravel offers today.

A Stack Overflow study indicates that 10.12% of developers prefer the Laravel framework. The well-known PHP tech stack has grown in prominence among developers. Over 744,615 active websites use laravel.

Choosing the finest PHP framework might be challenging, given the many options available. Thankfully, GitHub has useful metrics that enable us to choose the most famous of them. Laravel tops this list as a high-performance and robust framework.

Popular brands and apps using Laravel

Many companies are taking advantage of the money-saving benefits Laravel has to offer. It enables new Laravel projects to quickly develop websites, applications, and eCommerce solutions that can revolutionize their operations for success. Well-known names such as

9GAG

Pfizer

BBC

Ratio

TourRadar

Crowdcube

have all found great success in utilizing this powerful development platform.

Key Features of Laravel

• Eloquent ORM
  

One of Laravel’s finest features is its object-relational mapper (ORM), abbreviated as Eloquent, which enables seamless interaction with the chosen database and data model.
With the help of Eloquent, Laravel removes all barriers to using and creating complex SQL queries to access data from your database.

• Artisan CLI
  

Another crucial component of Laravel is the Artisan CLI, or command line. Without navigating through folders and files, you may use it to create or alter any aspect of Laravel from the command line.
Artisan Test Command even allows you to interact with your database straight from the command line using Laravel Tinker without installing a database
client.

• MVC Architecture
  

Due to its MVC architectural design, a well-known web development pattern with ongoing, significant improvements, Laravel is a relatable and adaptable language.
Laravel will force you to learn and comprehend the MVC architectural pattern, which is common and used in nearly all frameworks, including ASP.NET MVC from C# and AdonisJS from JavaScript.

• Automatic Pagination
  

You will understand the value of having your pagination managed by a built-in framework if you have ever struggled with pagination in your apps.
By creating automatic pagination that works out of the box, Laravel eliminates the pagination issue. One of its most prominent features, it takes the labour out of having to figure out the pagination mystery on your own.

• Security
  

Examining a web application’s security procedures is crucial because failing to do so could result in loss of funds or even hijacking of your site or product.
Due to its adherence to the OWASP security principles, Laravel has several security features. Laravel includes a built-in solution for any security issue, including SQL injection and cross-site request forgery (CSRF).

Ensuring robust web application security procedures is crucial because failing to do so could result in loss of funds or even hijacking your site or product.

Due to its adherence to OWASP security principles, Laravel has several security features. Laravel includes a built-in solution for any security issue, including SQL injection and cross-site request forgery (CSRF).

What’s New in Laravel 9, Features and Updates

Check out the exciting new features and updates in Laravel 9!

Laravel Developers now have even more capabilities for creating powerful applications with this popular framework.

• Minimum PHP Version Requirement
  

To ensure that Laravel 9 runs optimally, you must have the latest PHP 8 and PHPUnit 8. Upgrading to these versions unlocks access to Symfony v6.0’s features, such as JIT compilation and constructor property promotion, while providing performance gains over previous versions of PHP.

• Anonymous Stub Migration
  

When using the migration command, Laravel makes anonymous stub migration its default action:

php artisan make:migration

To address this Github issue, the anonymous stub migration feature was initially introduced in Laravel 8.37. The challenge is that multiple migrations with the same class name may result in issues when attempting to rebuild the database from scratch. With the new stub migration feature, Migration class name collisions are eliminated.

In Laravel 9, it will be the default behaviour and has been supported by the framework since Laravel 8.37.

• New Query Builder Interface
  

Type hinting is incredibly trustworthy for refactoring, static analysis, and code completion in their IDEs with the new Laravel 9 because QueryBuilder, EloquentBuilder, and EloquentRelation don’t share an inheritance or interface. Developers may now take advantage of the new query builder interface for type hinting, refactoring, and static analysis, thanks to Laravel 9.

• Inline Blade rendering
  

Inline Blade rendering now makes it possible to convert a raw Blade template string into valid HTML.

• Implicit route bindings with enums
  

Now, hints can be entered using a PHP enum in Laravel route declarations. In such a case, Laravel will only invoke the route if it has a valid enum in the URI and will return a 404 otherwise.

• The new Scout database engine
  

The brand-new Laravel Scout database engine is part of Laravel v9. It gives Eloquent models the full-text search capabilities. It is a suitable choice for applications that employ a small- or medium-sized database or have a light workload since it uses model observers to keep search indexes in sync with Eloquent records.

• String functions for PHP 8
  

Because Laravel 9 is compatible with PHP 8, Laravel merged this PR and advised employing the most recent PHP file string functions.
These functions include the use of str contains(), str starts with(), and str ends with() internally in the \Illuminate\Support\Str class.

The enhancements mentioned above and features in Laravel 9 are just a preview of what is to come. There will undoubtedly be many new features, bug fixes, and numerous breaking changes.

How to Install Laravel 9

Ready to take Laravel 9 for a spin? You can get it up and running on your local machine in no time. Just be sure you’re using PHP 8; otherwise, initiate a fresh install! Jumpstarting development is as simple as executing the following command with Composer:

composer create-project –prefer-dist laravel/laravel laravel-9-dev test-laravel9

If you have a Laravel installation, proceed as directed below:

laravel new laravel-9-dev test-laravel9

Check your version using this command after installing Laravel 9.

cd dev-laravel9

php artisan –version

Wrapping Up

Upgrading your software infrastructure from an older version to a new version of Laravel 9 can be risky if you don’t have the requisite in-house expertise. Hiring a dedicated Laravel developer from chilliapple is the best way to ensure your application software update goes off without a hitch. Our experienced Laravel experts will take care of everything, from providing zero data loss to minimising downtime so that you can focus on running your business.

Upgrading to Laravel 9 is a complex and time-consuming process, but the chilliapple team can help take care of your web application development quickly and efficiently. With our years of experience in web development, we know exactly how to upgrade your website to meet all the requirements of the latest Laravel version. Contact our Laravel development agency today to start your Laravel project upgrade process.