I'm doing my first project trying to learn Laravel and I've come to the point where I want to create an object.

I've created it and tried it out and it works as I want it to, but where do I put it? As of now it lies directly in my controller, but it doesn't feel right and besides that I think it messes up the code. Where are you actually supposed to put it? Is there such a place?

This is how my code looks and as you can see it is called "Hosts" and it's placed at the top of the page:

<?php

namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use Illuminate\Http\Request;


class Host {
    public $ipv4, $mac;

    public function __construct($ipv4, $mac){
        $this->ipv4 = $ipv4;
        $this->mac = $mac;
    }
}

class PagesController extends Controller
{
    public function index(){

        libxml_use_internal_errors(true); //ignore invalid HTML tag warnings
        $dom = new \DOMDocument();
        // Check that there's actually a file to load 
        if(!$dom->loadHTMLFile('\\\192.168.1.201oot\test.xml')){
            die('error loading xml');
        }

        // Loop through all <host> tags
        foreach ($dom->getElementsByTagName('host') as $hostKey => $host) {
            $hostAttributes = array();
            // Check for <address> tags and loop through them as well
            foreach ($host->getElementsByTagName('address') as $addressKey => $addressValue) {
                // Check that there is an <addrtype> and <addr> tag
                if($addressValue->getAttribute('addrtype') && $addressValue->getAttribute('addr')){
                    // Put that into the array $hostAttributes
                    $hostAttributes[$addressValue->getAttribute('addrtype')] = $addressValue->getAttribute('addr');
                }
            }
            // Check for the keys 'ipv4' and 'mac' in $hostAttributes
            if(array_key_exists('ipv4', $hostAttributes) && array_key_exists('mac', $hostAttributes)) {
                $hosts[$hostKey] = new Host($hostAttributes['ipv4'], $hostAttributes['mac']);
            }
        }

        // set data
        $data = [
            'hosts' => $hosts
        ];

        // return view
        return view('pages.index')->with('data', $data);
    }
}

The file is located in "/app/Http/Controllers/PagesController.php" and I'm running Laravel 5.7.21

You should be using namespaces and create a namespace and directory structure that makes sense to you and your requirements. For example, you can make a directory named Helpers or BusinessLogic or anything else in the app directory. Then put your classes there with proper namespace e.g. for directory Helpers, the namespace is App\Helpers.

This is set up in composer PSR 4 autoloading. Checkout Autoloading in PHP and PSR 4 in these articles

• PHP Composer … The Autoloader
• Making Sense of PHP Autoloading

Example using PSR-4 Autoloading

Place class in the following structure

• app
  • Helpers
    • Host.php

Then import it in your controller class as

<?php

namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use App\Helpers\Host;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;

class PagesController extends Controller
{
...
...
            if(array_key_exists('ipv4', $hostAttributes) && array_key_exists('mac', $hostAttributes)) {
                $hosts[$hostKey] = new Host($hostAttributes['ipv4'], $hostAttributes['mac']);
            }
...
...    

If it's helpful, I usually structure my Laravel apps like this:

• app
  • Core (Shared App Wide Stuff)
    • Console
      • Kernel.php
      • Commands
        • SomeCommand.php
    • Http
      • Kernel.php
      • routes.php (Pulls In All Route Files)
      • Middleware
        • ... (The Laravel Middleware)
      • Requests
        • ... (All Core Request Base Classes)
      • Controllers
        • Controller.php
    • Services
      • APIService.php
    • Providers
      • AppServiceProvider.php
      • ... (The Rest Of the Laravel Providers)
    • Exceptions
      • Handler.php
    • Repositories
      • EloquentRepository.php
    • helpers.php (Usually I Have A Helpers File Here)
  • Domain (Business Logic Stuff)
    • User
      • User.php (User Model)
      • Http
        • routes.php
        • Controllers
          • UserController.php
      • Requests
        • NewUserRequest.php
  • Divisions
    • Division.php (Another Model)
    • Http
      • routes.php
      • Controllers
        • DomainController.php

Obviously I'm leaving some stuff out for brevity, but you get the idea.

My PSR-4 definition ends up looking like:

"autoload": {
  ...
  "files": [
    "app/Core/helpers.php"
  ],
  "psr-4": {      
    "App\\": "app/Domain/",
    "Core\\": "app/Core/"
  }
  ...
}

Modifying Laravel's structure like this also requires you update your bootstrap/app.php file with the new namespaces, along with any files you move from the default Laravel install.

Using the above structure and depending on what this new object will do it should be pretty clear to you where you'd put it. You could even just make a Models folder for the class under, say, User. Or, just put the new class directly next to the User.php model, assuming it's related to users.

It might look something like this:

<?php namespace App\User;

class SomeClassName {
  ...
}

Then, referencing from, say, the UserController.php might look like:

<?php namespace App\User;

use Core\Http\Controllers\Controller;
use App\User\SomeClass;

class UserController extends Controller {

    public function __constructor(SomeClass $someClass)
    {
        $this->someClass = $someClass; 
    }
}

All hypothetical, but hopefully gets you pointed in correct direction.