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Getting Started 47
• autoload.php
• paths.php
• start.php
The bootstrap directory contains a few files that relate to the startup procedures of the framework.
The autoload.php file contains most of these procedures, and should only be edited by experienced
Laravel users.
The paths.php file builds an array of the common filesystem paths that are used by the framework.
If for some reason you decide to alter the directory structure of the framework packages, you may
need to alter the contents of this file to reflect your changes.
The start.php file contains more startup procedures for the framework. I don’t want to dig into
these in detail right now as that may cause unnecessary confusion. Instead you should probably
take note that framework environments can be set here. If you don’t know what the environments
are used for then don’t worry. We will cover that later!
Simply put, the contents of the bootstrap directory should only be edited by experienced Laravel
users who need to alter the shape of the framework on the filesystem. If you are new to Laravel,
then just ignore it for now, but don’t delete it! Laravel needs this directory to function.
vendor
The vendor directory contains all of the composer packages that are used by your application. This,
of course, includes the Laravel framework package. For more information about this directory please
refer back to the Composer primer chapter.
public
• packages/
• .htaccess
• favicon.ico
• index.php
• robots.txt
The public directory should be the only web facing directory of a Laravel application. It’s normally
where your assets such as CSS, Javascript files and images will live. Let’s have a closer look at the
contents.
The packages directory will be used to contain any assets that need to be installed by third party
packages. They are kept in a separate directory so that they don’t conflict with our applications own
assets.
Laravel 4 ships with a standard .htaccess file for the Apache web server. It contains some standard
configuration directives that will make sense for most users of the framework. If you use an
alternative web server you can either ignore this file or delete it.