New Features and Improvements in Laravel 7

Laravel 7 continues the optimization of Laravel 6.x and introduces several new features and improvements. Laravel Airlock (lightweight API authentication solution)

Route matching speed optimization

Custom Eloquent cast types

Blade component tags

String operation method enhancements

Developer‑focused HTTP client

Native CORS support

Route model binding optimizations

Stub generation (custom class code generation)

Database queue optimizations

Support for multiple mail drivers

Query type casting

New artisan test command

Various bug fixes and usability improvements

HTTP Client

<?php
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Http;
$response = Http::post($url);
$response = Http::post($url, [
    'site' => 'Laravel Article',
]);

To retrieve responses:

$response = Http::get($url);
$response = Http::get($url, ['foo' => 'bar']);

Sending requests with custom headers:

$response = Http::withHeaders(['foo' => 'bar'])
    ->post($url, [
        'baz' => 'qux',
    ]);

Response helpers include $response['foo'], $response->body(), $response->json(), $response->status(), and $response->ok().

Route Model Binding and Cache Speed Optimization

Customizing the key used for route model binding is now possible, e.g.:

Route::get('api/posts/{post:slug}', function (App\Post $post) {
    return $post;
});

When using route:cache, Laravel 7’s route matching is twice as fast as Laravel 6.

Custom Eloquent Casts

Developers can define a class implementing the CastsAttributes interface with get and set methods to handle custom type conversion between database values and PHP objects.

Fluent String Operations

return (string) Str::of(' Laravel Framework 6.x ')
    ->trim()
    ->replace('6.x', '7.x')
    ->slug();

The article also includes a motivational Chinese passage about perseverance and growth.