Laravel 5 Basics (9) - Form

First, let us modify the routing to add an article to publish.

<code>Route::get('articles/create', 'ArticlesController@create');</code>

Then modify the controller

<code>    public function create() {
        return view('articles.create');
    }</code>

We return a view and create a new view. Of course we could create the form directly using HTML, but we have a more functional way. We use an open source library, illuminatehtml developed by Jeffrey Way. Install dependent libraries:

<code>composer require illuminate/html</code>

Laravel’s library needs to be registered in laravel before it can be used. In config/app.php, we can see the provider field provided by laravel, which describes the library functions of laravel. In Laravel Framewirk Service Providers... finally add our new HtmlProvider

<code>'Illuminate\Html\HtmlServiceProvider',</code>

We don’t want to use a long name like IlluminateHtmlFromFacade to import, we need a short name. Find the aliases section in the current app.php and add the alias at the end.

<code>'Form'      => 'Illuminate\Html\FormFacade',
'Html'      => 'Illuminate\Html\HtmlFacade',</code>

OK, now let’s create the view, views/articles/create.blade.php

<code>@extends('layout')

@section('content')
    <h1>Write a New Article</h1>

    <hr/>

    {{--使用我们添加的 illuminate\html 开源库--}}
    {!! Form::open() !!}

    {!! Form::close() !!}

@stop</code>

Visit /articles/create and see the error, Why? Let’s test it to see what went wrong. Make the following changes in the controller:

<code>    public function show($id) {
        dd('show');
        
        $article = Article::findOrFail($id);

        return view('articles.show', compact('article'));
    }</code>

That’s right, you read that right, just add the dd() method to the show method. This method simply outputs a message and then dies. Let’s visit /articles/create again. What do you see? You see the output show.

Why did we access create and the resulting route gave us show? Let’s check the route and see what happened.

<code>Route::get('articles', 'ArticlesController@index');
Route::get('articles/{id}', 'ArticlesController@show');
Route::get('articles/create', 'ArticlesController@create');</code>

The above is our route, notice that articles/{id} means this is a wildcard, everything after articles/ will match, did you know? Our /articles/create was also matched by him. OMG!

The solution is to adjust the order:

<code>Route::get('articles', 'ArticlesController@index');
Route::get('articles/create', 'ArticlesController@create');
Route::get('articles/{id}', 'ArticlesController@show');</code>

That is, from special to ordinary, you should always pay attention to this issue in future routing settings. Now we are accessing articles/create and everything is OK.

Check the source code in the browser, you will find that not only method and action are generated, but also a hidden _token field is generated as the server verifies the form to avoid forgery attacks by hackers.

Let’s modify our view and add fields:

<code>@extends('layout')

@section('content')
    <h1>Write a New Article</h1>

    <hr/>

    {{--使用我们添加的 illuminate\html 开源库--}}
    {!! Form::open() !!}
        <div class="form-group">
            {!! Form::label('title', 'Title:') !!}
            {!! Form::text('title', null, ['class' => 'form-control']) !!}
        </div>

        <div class="form-group">
            {!! Form::label('body', 'Body:') !!}
            {!! Form::textarea('body', null, ['class' => 'form-control']) !!}
        </div>

        <div class="form-group">
            {!! Form::submit('Add Article', ['class' => 'btn btn-primary form-control']) !!}
        </div>

    {!! Form::close() !!}

@stop</code>

When the form is submitted, it is actually submitted to articles/create using the post method, but according to RESTful habits, we hope to be able to post to /articles, let’s modify the form of the view Method to set the submission path.

<code>{!! Form::open(['url' => 'articles']) !!}</code>

Then we handle the form submission event in the route.

<code>Route::post('/articles', 'ArticlesController@store');</code>

Let’s deal with the controller

<code>
//注意：将下面的 use 语句删除，我们使用 facade 接口中的 Request
//use App\Http\Requests\Request;

//引入下面的命名空间中的 Request
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Request;

    public function store() {
        //使用 Illuminate\Html\Request 来返回全部的表单输入字段
        $input = Request::all();

        //我们直接返回$input，来看一下
        return $input;
    }</code>

We can directly see the json result of the input form. If you only need the value of the title field, you can use Request::get('titel') .

How to add it to the database? With the help of the model, we can directly adopt the following method,

<code>Article::create($input);</code>

It’s that simple, it’s that willful

If we didn’t forget Mass Assignment, we defined the $fillable array in our model to define those fields that can be filled directly during create.

Modify the controller, add it to the model, and store it in the database.

<code>    public function store() {
        $input = Request::all();
        Article::create($input);

        return redirect('articles');
    }</code>

Try adding a record, it’s great. But don't forget. We also have a field called published_at , let’s deal with that.

<code>    public function store() {
        $input = Request::all();
        $input['published_at'] = Carbon::now();

        Article::create($input);
        
        return redirect('articles');
    }</code>

Add a new record and test it.

There is another problem, the newly added one should be displayed at the front, let’s modify the following controller.

<code>	public function index() {
        //倒序获取文章
        //可以这样
        //$articles = Article::orderBy('published_at', 'desc')->get();
        //简单方式，当然还有 oldest()
        $articles = Article::latest('published_at')->get();

        return view('articles.index', compact('articles'));
    }</code>

The above introduces the basics of Laravel 5 (9) - Form, including the content. I hope it will be helpful to friends who are interested in PHP tutorials.