Inconsistent behaviour with ::class in routes file.

[sustained]

• Laravel Version: 5.7.5
• PHP Version: 7.1.23
• Database Driver & Version: N/A

Description:

Presume the following two lines of code are present at the end of all four following examples:

Route::resource('threads', ThreadController::class);
Route::post('/threads/{thread}/replies', [ReplyController::class, 'store']);

Depending on the use statements, things either work or don't or some variation thereof:

Example 1

use App\Http\Controllers\ReplyController;
// All routes work.

Example 2

// (No use statements)
// Only the routes on the threads resource work, otherwise:
// ReflectionException, Function () does not exist

Example 3

use App\Http\Controllers\ThreadController;
use App\Http\Controllers\ReplyController;
// Only the store reply route works, otherwise:
// App\Http\Controllers\App\Http\Controllers\ThreadController does not exist

Example 4

use App\Http\Controllers\ThreadController;
// None of the routes work.
// App\Http\Controllers\App\Http\Controllers\ThreadController does not exist

I would expect either #2 or #3 to be the one where all routes work?

Surely this is unintended behaviour. It's a little confusing to me.

Steps To Reproduce:

1. Scaffold a new laravel project
2. php artisan make:controller ThreadController -r
3. php artisan make:controller ReplyController -r
4. Try the 4 combinations of use statements above, with the 2 route declarations below.

[driesvints]

Laravel sets the namespace for routes in the RouteServiceProvider file. That's why #1 works. Closure based routes aren't affected by this because of the entire purpose of providing FQN as the first argument. That's why they were added. That's also the reason why all other examples behave as they do.

https://github.com/laravel/laravel/blob/bc435e7fdd8308d133a404b1daa811dd30d95fe5/app/Providers/RouteServiceProvider.php#L55