Using a non-Eloquent ORM in Laravel

Laravel's Eloquent ORM is easy-to-use and very efficient. However, there are many different PHP ORMs and we may decide we prefer another ORM. In this recipe, we'll install the RedBean ORM and use it for our data.

Getting ready

For this recipe, we'll be using the RedBean ORM. You'll need to download it from http://www.redbeanphp.com/manual/installing, and unzip the file. Then move the file rb.php to the app/libraries directory of your app.

How to do it...

To complete this recipe, follow these steps:

1. In the composer.json file, make our autoloader load our libraries directory. The autoload section should look similar to this:

   "autoload": {
       "classmap": [
           "app/commands",
           "app/controllers",
           "app/models",
           "app/database/migrations",
           "app/database/seeds",
           "app/tests/TestCase.php",
           "app/libraries"
       ],
   }

2. In the command prompt, dump our autoloader:

   php composer.phar dump-autoload
   

3. In our routes.php file, we'll...