Laravel 8 - Target class [ProductController] does not exist - Solved

I will give you simple solution of "target class does not exist laravel 8" and "laravel 8 Target class [Controller] does not exist".

Just yesterday launch laravel 8 and i was trying to create my first application with laravel 8 and when i create controller call ProductController and when i used with route then i found following issue:

"Target class [ProductController] does not exist"

you can see bellow screenshot too.

Actually this is not an error but laravel 8 removed default namespace form RouteServiceProvider.php file. but i will say this good feature if you want to call your controller class from different namespace.

but now if you want to looking for solution then i will give you two solution. you can use in route file or you can define default namespace on RouteServiceProvider.php file. let's see both solution one by one.

I hope it can help you.

Solution 1: Use on Route File

routes/web.php

<?php
  
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Route;
  
use App\Http\Controllers\ProductController;
use App\Http\Controllers\PostController;
  
/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Web Routes
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| Here is where you can register web routes for your application. These
| routes are loaded by the RouteServiceProvider within a group which
| contains the "web" middleware group. Now create something great!
|
*/
  
Route::get('/', function () {
    return view('welcome');
});
  
Route::resource('products', ProductController::class);
  
Route::get('posts', [PostController::class, 'index']);

Solution 2: Define in RouteServiceProvider

second solution is you can define as laravel old version. so let's define it as bellow:

app/Http/Providers/RouteServiceProvider.php

<?php
  
namespace App\Providers;
  
use Illuminate\Cache\RateLimiting\Limit;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Support\Providers\RouteServiceProvider as ServiceProvider;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\RateLimiter;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Route;
  
class RouteServiceProvider extends ServiceProvider
{
    /**
     * The path to the "home" route for your application.
     *
     * This is used by Laravel authentication to redirect users after login.
     *
     * @var string
     */
    public const HOME = '/home';
    protected $namespace = 'App\Http\Controllers';
  
    /**
     * Define your route model bindings, pattern filters, etc.
     *
     * @return void
     */
    public function boot()
    {
        $this->configureRateLimiting();
  
        $this->routes(function () {
            Route::middleware('web')
                ->namespace($this->namespace)
                ->group(base_path('routes/web.php'));
  
            Route::prefix('api')
                ->middleware('api')
                ->group(base_path('routes/api.php'));
        });
    }
  
    ....

routes/web.php

<?php
  
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Route;
  
/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Web Routes
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| Here is where you can register web routes for your application. These
| routes are loaded by the RouteServiceProvider within a group which
| contains the "web" middleware group. Now create something great!
|
*/
  
Route::get('/', function () {
    return view('welcome');
});
  
Route::resource('products', 'ProductController');
  
Route::get('posts', 'PostController@index');

I hope it can help you...