Harnessing Laravel and WordPress with Corcel

1. What is Corcel?

Corcel is a collection of PHP classes that enable direct connection to the WordPress database using Laravel’s Eloquent ORM. This allows you to use WordPress as a backend and query its data as models from other PHP applications.

For example, you can perform tasks like:

• Retrieve all published posts: `Post::published()->get()`
• Retrieve a specific post: `Post::find(31)`

Corcel makes it easy to fetch all WordPress data within a Laravel project, which is especially useful for complex web projects.

2. Installation and Configuration

To install Corcel, you need to use Composer.

composer require jgrossi/corcel

After installation, configure the connection to the WordPress database in the `config/corcel.php` file. For example, the following configuration is required:

'connection' => 'wordpress',

Now, you can query WordPress database data as models in your Laravel project using Corcel.

3. Key Features and Usage Examples

3.1 Fetching Post Data

With Corcel, you can easily fetch post data from WordPress. For example, to retrieve all published posts, use the following code:

$posts = Post::published()->get();

3.2 Custom Post Types

Handling custom post types in WordPress is also straightforward. For example, to fetch video post types, use the following code:

$videos = Post::type('video')->status('publish')->get();

3.3 Handling Metadata

You can also easily query and update WordPress metadata. Here’s an example of querying metadata:

$post = Post::find(31);
echo $post->meta->link;

4. Custom Model Classes

You can create custom model classes tailored to your Laravel project’s requirements. For example, to create a custom Post model class, write the following code:

namespace App;

use Corcel\Model\Post as CorcelPost;

class Post extends CorcelPost
{
    protected $connection = 'wordpress';

    public function customMethod() {
        // Custom method
    }
}

Now, you can use the `App\Post` class to query WordPress data:

$posts = App\Post::all();

Conclusion

By using Corcel, you can combine Laravel and WordPress to create an optimal web development environment. This combination allows you to handle any project easily by integrating WordPress’s powerful CMS features with Laravel’s modern web development environment.