Store Laravel Global Settings in the Database (with Caching)

Do you store Laravel global settings in the config files? Would you want them to be editable without touching the code? Let's build a Settings page where you can change things quickly.

Notice: In this simple tutorial we won't use any packages for this, but at the end, I will give a few additional links for extra resources using packages.

1. Setup new Laravel project

For this tutorial, we will start with a new Laravel project with Laravel Breeze as a starter kit.

laravel new demo-database-settings
cd demo-database-settings
composer require laravel/breeze
php artisan breeze:install blade
php artisan migrate

2. DB Structure: Settings Model with Migration and Seeder

php artisan make:model Setting -mcs

Let's add the key and value columns to our migration file. We ensure that the key is always unique and that value can have a null value.

database/migrations/2023_05_12_040715_create_settings_table.php

use Illuminate\Database\Migrations\Migration;
use Illuminate\Database\Schema\Blueprint;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Schema;
 
return new class extends Migration {
    public function up(): void
    {
        Schema::create('settings', function (Blueprint $table) {
            $table->id();
            $table->string('key')->unique();
            $table->string('value')->nullable();
            $table->timestamps();
        });
    }
};

In the model, allow key and value attributes to be mass assignable by adding the $fillable property.

app/Models/Setting.php

namespace App\Models;
 
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Factories\HasFactory;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
 
class Setting extends Model
{
    use HasFactory;
 
    protected $fillable = ['key', 'value'];
}

Let's add some initial entries into the seeder:

database/seeders/SettingSeeder.php

namespace Database\Seeders;
 
use App\Models\Setting;
use Illuminate\Database\Console\Seeds\WithoutModelEvents;
use Illuminate\Database\Seeder;
 
class SettingSeeder extends Seeder
{
    /**
     * Run the database seeds.
     */
    public function run(): void
    {
        $settings = [
            ['key' => 'site_name', 'value' => 'Article about database settings'],
            ['key' => 'description', 'value' => 'Learn how to manage app settings using database.'],
            ['key' => 'admin_email', 'value' => '[email protected]'],
            ['key' => 'posts_per_page', 'value' => 10],
            ['key' => 'users_can_register', 'value' => true],
        ];
 
        Setting::insert($settings);
    }
}

Make sure you call SettingSeeder by adding it to DatabaseSeeder.

database/seeders/DatabaseSeeder.php

namespace Database\Seeders;
 
// use Illuminate\Database\Console\Seeds\WithoutModelEvents;
use Illuminate\Database\Seeder;
 
class DatabaseSeeder extends Seeder
{
    /**
     * Seed the application's database.
     */
    public function run(): void
    {
        $this->call(SettingSeeder::class);
    }
}

Finally, you can run migrations with seeders:

php artisan migrate --seed

3. Controller, Routes, and View

Our Controller will have edit() and update() methods to show form and update values:

app/Http/Controllers/SettingsController.php

namespace App\Http\Controllers;
 
use App\Models\Setting;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
 
class SettingsController extends Controller
{
    public function edit()
    {
        return view('settings', [
            'settings' => Setting::get(['key', 'value'])
        ]);
    }
 
    public function update(Request $request)
    {
        $data = $request->except('_token');
 
        foreach ($data as $key => $value) {
            Setting::where('key', $key)->update(['value' => $value]);
        }
 
        return to_route('settings.edit')
            ->withStatus('Settings updated successfully.');
    }
}

Create the settings blade view with the following...