DALT.PHP - Learn Backend by Debugging

DALT.PHP includes a powerful command-line interface (CLI) called Artisan for common development tasks.

Getting Help

View all available commands:

php artisan help

Development Commands

serve

Start the PHP development server.

php artisan serve [host] [port]

Default: 127.0.0.1:8000

Examples:

# Start on default port 8000
php artisan serve

# Start on custom port
php artisan serve 127.0.0.1 8080

# Make accessible from network
php artisan serve 0.0.0.0 8000

If the specified port is in use, Artisan automatically finds the next available port.

What it does:

Starts PHP's built-in web server
Serves files from the public/ directory
Uses public/router.php for routing
Hot-reloads on file changes

dev

Start both PHP and Vite development servers simultaneously.

php artisan dev

What it does:

Starts PHP server on port 8000
Starts Vite dev server on port 5173
Enables hot module replacement (HMR) for frontend
Runs both servers in parallel

Requires Node.js and npm installed. Run npm install in .dalt/ directory first.

Press Ctrl+C to stop both servers.

Database Commands

migrate

Run all pending database migrations.

php artisan migrate

What it does:

Scans database/migrations/ directory
Executes .sql files in chronological order
Tracks executed migrations in migrations table
Skips already-run migrations

Output example:

Running migration: 20240315120000_create_users_table.sql
✓ Success

Running migration: 20240315130000_create_posts_table.sql
✓ Success

Ran 2 migrations.

Migrations are idempotent - safe to run multiple times.

migrate:fresh

Drop the database and run all migrations from scratch.

php artisan migrate:fresh

WARNING: This deletes ALL data! Only use in development.

What it does:

Deletes the SQLite database file
Recreates the database
Runs all migrations
Resets migration tracking

Use cases:

Starting fresh during development
Resetting test data
Fixing migration conflicts

make:migration

Create a new SQL migration file.

php artisan make:migration <name>

Examples:

# Create posts table migration
php artisan make:migration create_posts_table

# Create users table migration
php artisan make:migration create_users_table

# Add column migration
php artisan make:migration add_status_to_posts

Generated file:

database/migrations/20240315120000_create_posts_table.sql

Template content:

-- Migration: create_posts_table
-- Created: 2024-03-15 12:00:00

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS posts (
    id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT,
    name VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
    created_at DATETIME DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP,
    updated_at DATETIME DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP
);

-- Add indexes here
-- CREATE INDEX IF NOT EXISTS idx_posts_name ON posts(name);

-- Notes:
-- SQLite: INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT
-- MySQL:  INT AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY
-- PostgreSQL: SERIAL PRIMARY KEY

Next steps:

Edit the generated file
Customize table structure
Run php artisan migrate

Testing Commands

test

Run the Pest test suite.

php artisan test

What it does:

Executes all tests in tests/ directory
Uses Pest PHP testing framework
Shows test results with colors
Reports coverage (if configured)

Requires Pest installed: composer require pestphp/pest --dev

Output example:

PASS  Tests\Feature\RoutingTest
✓ homepage loads successfully
✓ posts index shows all posts
✓ single post shows correct data

Tests:  3 passed
Time:   0.12s

verify

Verify a challenge solution.

php artisan verify <challenge-name>

Available challenges:

broken-routing
broken-middleware
broken-auth
broken-database
broken-session

Example:

php artisan verify broken-routing

Output:

╔══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║           DALT Challenge Verification System                ║
╚══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝

Verifying: broken-routing
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

✓ Route get /posts/create exists
✓ Route get /posts/{id}/edit exists
✓ Route order correct: specific before generic
✓ No problematic code found

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Results: 4/4 tests passed
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

✅ All tests passed! Challenge complete!

What it does:

Runs automated tests for the challenge
Checks for specific bugs and fixes
Provides hints if tests fail
Logs results to storage/logs/challenges.log

Exit codes:

0 - All tests passed
1 - Some tests failed

Example Commands

example:install

Install pre-built example code.

php artisan example:install <example-name>

Available examples:

auth - Complete authentication system

Example:

php artisan example:install auth

What it does:

Copies controller files to Http/controllers/
Copies view files to resources/views/
Appends routes to routes/routes.php
Creates installation marker

Installed files:

Http/controllers/
├── session/
│   ├── create.php (login form)
│   ├── store.php (login handler)
│   └── destroy.php (logout)
└── registration/
    ├── create.php (register form)
    └── store.php (register handler)

resources/views/auth/
├── login.view.php
└── register.view.php

Added routes:

$router->get('/register', 'registration/create.php')->only('guest');
$router->post('/register', 'registration/store.php')->only(['guest','csrf']);
$router->get('/login', 'session/create.php')->only('guest');
$router->post('/session', 'session/store.php')->only(['guest','csrf']);
$router->delete('/session', 'session/destroy.php')->only(['auth','csrf']);

After installation, visit /register or /login to use the auth system.

Command Reference

Quick Reference Table

Command	Purpose	Example
`serve`	Start dev server	`php artisan serve`
`dev`	Start PHP + Vite	`php artisan dev`
`migrate`	Run migrations	`php artisan migrate`
`migrate:fresh`	Reset database	`php artisan migrate:fresh`
`make:migration`	Create migration	`php artisan make:migration create_posts`
`test`	Run tests	`php artisan test`
`verify`	Check challenge	`php artisan verify broken-routing`
`example:install`	Install example	`php artisan example:install auth`
`help`	Show help	`php artisan help`

Common Workflows

Starting Development

# Terminal 1: Start servers
php artisan dev

# Terminal 2: Watch logs (optional)
tail -f storage/logs/app.log

Database Setup

# Create migration
php artisan make:migration create_posts_table

# Edit: database/migrations/TIMESTAMP_create_posts_table.sql

# Run migration
php artisan migrate

Working on Challenges

# Copy challenge files
cp course/challenges/broken-routing/routes/routes.php routes/

# Fix the bugs...

# Verify solution
php artisan verify broken-routing

Fresh Start

# Reset database
php artisan migrate:fresh

# Clear logs
rm storage/logs/*.log

# Restart server
php artisan serve

Troubleshooting

Port Already in Use

If you see "Address already in use":

# Use different port
php artisan serve 127.0.0.1 8080

# Or kill existing process
lsof -ti:8000 | xargs kill -9

Migration Errors

If migrations fail:

# Check migration syntax
cat database/migrations/TIMESTAMP_file.sql

# Reset and try again
php artisan migrate:fresh

Vite Not Starting

If php artisan dev fails:

# Install dependencies
cd .dalt
npm install

# Try again
cd ..
php artisan dev

Permission Errors

If you see permission denied:

# Make artisan executable
chmod +x artisan

# Fix storage permissions
chmod -R 775 storage
chmod -R 775 database

Advanced Usage

Custom Server Configuration

# Bind to all interfaces
php artisan serve 0.0.0.0 8000

# Use specific PHP version
/usr/bin/php8.2 artisan serve

Running Specific Tests

# Run specific test file
vendor/bin/pest tests/Feature/RoutingTest.php

# Run with coverage
vendor/bin/pest --coverage

Migration Management

# Check migration status
sqlite3 database/app.sqlite "SELECT * FROM migrations;"

# Manually mark migration as run
sqlite3 database/app.sqlite "INSERT INTO migrations (migration) VALUES ('20240315_file.sql');"

Environment Variables

Some commands respect environment variables:

# Use different database
DB_DATABASE=database/test.sqlite php artisan migrate

# Enable debug mode
APP_DEBUG=true php artisan serve

Next Steps

Configuration - Configure your application
Verification System - How challenge verification works
Building a Blog - Use these commands in practice

CLI Commands

Getting Help

Development Commands

serve

dev

Database Commands

migrate

migrate:fresh

make:migration

Testing Commands

test

verify

Example Commands

example:install

Command Reference

Quick Reference Table

Common Workflows

Starting Development

Database Setup

Working on Challenges

Fresh Start

Troubleshooting

Port Already in Use

Migration Errors

Vite Not Starting

Permission Errors

Advanced Usage

Custom Server Configuration

Running Specific Tests

Migration Management

Environment Variables

Next Steps

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