Global Functions

If you're a fan of functional programming and prefer to define some globally accessible functions in your application, you can create a file to host your different functions, which will be available project-wide by default.

To create the file where you'll define the functions, simply run the command:

php artisan helper:functions

Helpers File

The above command will create a file named Functions within the Helpers folder in your Laravel project's app directory:

app/
└── Helpers/
    └── Functions.php
    //...

Defining Global Functions

With this file in your project, you can start defining global variables as shown in the following example. We'll simply create a function that returns the currently logged-in user.

if (! function_exists('current_user')) {
    function current_user()
    {
        return auth()->user();
    }
}

Notice how before defining the function, we've used function_exists, which ensures that if a function with this name doesn't already exist, this new one will be created.

Now, to call this function from anywhere in your project, whether in Blade views or in classes, controllers, models, etc., you simply use the function directly:

$user = current_user();

You don't need to modify the composer.json file as various tutorials on the internet suggest; this file comes preloaded.