How to develop an online auction system using Laravel

In today’s digital era, the auction industry has gradually moved online. This trend has been pushed to a higher level by the new crown epidemic, and many traditional auction houses have begun to try online auctions. To achieve this, they needed an auction system that was both powerful and easy to use. This article will introduce how to use the Laravel framework to build an online auction system.

Laravel is a popular PHP framework that provides many practical functions, such as routing, database migration, queue, etc.

1. Preparation

Before writing code, we need to install the Laravel development environment and some necessary dependencies. You can find detailed instructions on this process on the official Laravel website, here are some brief steps:

• Installing Laravel

You can use Composer to create a Laravel project . Just enter the following command in the console:

composer create-project --prefer-dist laravel/laravel auction-system

• Install dependencies

Go into the project directory and enter the following command to install all dependencies:

composer install

• Configure database

Modify the database connection information in the .env file and set the APP_KEY field to the application key. Then, run the following command to migrate the database:

php artisan migrate

2. Build the auction item model and migrate

The model is a core concept in Laravel, which represents the database table that interacts with the application. We need to create an auction item model to represent all online auction items. In Laravel, models are one-to-one with migrations, which are used to generate database tables.

Use the following command to generate the auction item model and migration:

php artisan make:model AuctionItem -m

This command will generate an AuctionItem.php file and a database migration file for us. The migration files are in the database/migrations directory, and the model files are in the app/Models directory.

We need to define the database table of auction items in the migration file. Open the generated migration file and modify the up method as follows:

public function up()
{
    Schema::create('auction_items', function (Blueprint $table) {
        $table->id();
        $table->string('name');
        $table->text('description');
        $table->integer('starting_price');
        $table->integer('current_price');
        $table->dateTime('start_time');
        $table->dateTime('end_time');
        $table->timestamps();
    });
}

Here, we define a model of auction items and add the following fields:

• name: the name of the auction item Name
• description: Description of the auction item
• starting_price: Starting price of the auction item
• current_price: Current price of the auction item
• start_time: Auction start time
• end_time: Auction end time

3. Add auction item interface and controller

Now we need to add a function that can create new auction items to our application interface. We will use Laravel's views and Blade templating engine to achieve this.

First, we need to create a controller to handle all auction item-related logic. Use the following command to create a controller:

php artisan make:controller AuctionItemController --resource

This command will create a controller file named AuctionItemController.php for us and generate the default index(), create(), store(), show( ), edit(), update(), destroy() and other methods. Here we need to use the create() method to process the new auction item page.

Open the AuctionItemController.php file and add the following code in the create() method:

public function create()
{
    return view('auction_item.create');
}

This method will render a view template named auction_item/create.blade.php and return it to browser.

Now we need to create a folder named auction_item in the resources/views directory and create a file named create.blade.php in it. Add the following code:

@extends('layouts.app')

@section('content')
    <div class="container">
        <h1>Create New Auction Item</h1>

        <form action="{{ route('auction-item.store') }}" method="post">
            @csrf

            <div class="form-group">
                <label for="name">Name</label>
                <input type="text" class="form-control" name="name" id="name" required>
            </div>

            <div class="form-group">
                <label for="description">Description</label>
                <textarea name="description" id="description" class="form-control" rows="5" required></textarea>
            </div>

            <div class="form-group">
                <label for="starting_price">Starting Price</label>
                <input type="number" class="form-control" name="starting_price" id="starting_price" min="0" required>
            </div>

            <div class="form-group">
                <label for="start_time">Start Time</label>
                <input type="datetime-local" class="form-control" name="start_time" id="start_time" required>
            </div>

            <div class="form-group">
                <label for="end_time">End Time</label>
                <input type="datetime-local" class="form-control" name="end_time" id="end_time" required>
            </div>

            <button type="submit" class="btn btn-primary">Create</button>
        </form>
    </div>
@endsection

This view file will render a user interface containing the forms required to create new auction items. We used Laravel's Blade template engine to render the form, and Laravel's routes and controllers to handle submitted data.

4. Add auction item creation routing and processing logic

Now we need to add a route to process the form data submitted by the user. Add the following routing code in the routes/web.php file:

Route::get('/auction-items/create', [AuctionItemController::class, 'create'])->name('auction-item.create');
Route::post('/auction-items', [AuctionItemController::class, 'store'])->name('auction-item.store');

This route will use the store() method of the AuctionItemController controller to handle POST requests.

Open the AuctionItemController.php file and add the following code:

public function store(Request $request)
{
    $data = $request->validate([
        'name' => 'required',
        'description' => 'required',
        'starting_price' => 'required|numeric|min:0',
        'start_time' => 'required|date',
        'end_time' => 'required|date|after:start_time',
    ]);

    $auctionItem = new AuctionItem();
    $auctionItem->name = $data['name'];
    $auctionItem->description = $data['description'];
    $auctionItem->starting_price = $data['starting_price'];
    $auctionItem->current_price = $data['starting_price'];
    $auctionItem->start_time = $data['start_time'];
    $auctionItem->end_time = $data['end_time'];
    $auctionItem->save();

    return redirect()->route('auction-item.index');
}

This method will validate the form data submitted by the user, store it in the database, and redirect the user to the auction item list page.

5. List page and auction function

Now we need to add an auction item list page and implement some basic auction functions in it. We will use Laravel's blade template engine to generate HTML pages and use Laravel's controllers to handle auction-related logic.

Add the following code in AuctionItemController.php:

public function index()
{
    $auctionItems = AuctionItem::all();

    return view('auction_item.index', compact('auctionItems'));
}

public function bid(Request $request, AuctionItem $auctionItem)
{
    $bidAmount = $request->input('bid_amount');

    if ($bidAmount <= $auctionItem->current_price) {
        return redirect()->back()->withErrors(['Bid amount should be greater than current price']);
    }

    $auctionItem->current_price = $bidAmount;
    $auctionItem->save();

    return redirect()->back()->with('success', 'Bid successful');
}

These methods will render the auction item list, handle the user's bid request, and store the bids into the database.

Create a file named index.blade.php in the resources/views/auction_item folder and add the following code:

@extends('layouts.app')

@section('content')
    <div class="container">
        <h1>Auction Items</h1>

        @foreach($auctionItems as $auctionItem)
            <div class="card mb-3">
                <div class="card-body">
                    <h5 class="card-title">{{ $auctionItem->name }}</h5>
                    <p class="card-text">{{ $auctionItem->description }}</p>
                    <p class="card-text">Starting Price: ${{ $auctionItem->starting_price }}</p>
                    <p class="card-text">Current Price: ${{ $auctionItem->current_price }}</p>
                    <form action="{{ route('auction-item.bid', $auctionItem) }}" method="post">
                        @csrf

                        <div class="form-group">
                            <label for="bid_amount">Your Bid</label>
                            <input type="number" class="form-control" name="bid_amount" id="bid_amount" min="{{ $auctionItem->current_price }}" required>
                        </div>

                        <button type="submit" class="btn btn-primary">Bid</button>
                    </form>
                </div>
            </div>
        @endforeach
    </div>
@endsection

This view file will display all auction items and provide a form to handle bid requests.

6.Complete

Now we have established an online auction system with basic functions. When users visit the homepage of the app, they will see a list of all auction items. Users can click on any auction item and be taken to the auction details page where they can submit a bid request. The current value of the auction will automatically update after each bid, and when the auction ends, the system will automatically sell the item to the highest bidder.

In this process, we used various functions provided by the Laravel framework, such as models, migration files, routing, controllers, views, and the Blade template engine. These powerful tools allow us to easily create a fully functional online auction system.

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