Why ::class is used when using a controller in Laravel

Question

Why ::class is written in Laravel 8 web.php

Route::get('/', [UserController::class, 'show']);

Does this answer your question? https://stackoverflow.com/a/42064777/7451109 — shaedrich, Jun 30 '21 at 08:07

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 30 '21 at 08:32

Class is just a constant provided by PHP. You can do either

Route::get('/', [UserController::class, 'show']);

or

Route::get('/', 'App\Http\Controllers\UserController@show');

When you use the class you can import it on top of your file by using use and you don't have to store it in strings like the second example.

1 Answers1