Laravel 5.5: add url to json object to save multiple pictures - php

Question

I need to save multiple pictures with Laravel. The pictures are stored separately on disk and the links to the places are stored in a JSON file in the database. So each users has an column in the database with:
{"images": ["/user/57/house-11-1.png", "/use/57/house-12-2.png"]}
So when the user uploads a file and click on save this code happens:
$path = $this->processImage($request, $user->id, $house->id);
/* uploads the image to the server and pass path of the image*/
if ($path) {
$jsonstring = $house->images;
dd($jsonstring);
$arr = json_decode($jsonstring);
$arr['images'] = [$path];
$json = json_encode($arr);
dd($json);
$house->images = $json;
$house->save();
}
The laravel model that is used is called userHouse and saves images as:
class userHouse extends Model implements Changeable
{
protected $casts = [
'images' => 'array',
];
...
}
processImage function:
private function processImage($request, $userID, $houseId)
{
$path = null;
$number = rand(1, 99);
if ($request->hasFile('image')) {
$image = Image::make($request->file('image'))
->resize(750, null, function ($constraint) {
$constraint->aspectRatio();
})
->encode('png');
$path = "/vendors/{$userID}/horse-{$houseId}-{$number}.png";
Storage::disk('fileadmin')->put($path, $image->encoded);
}
return $path;
}
the error I get is:
[2019-05-27 08:01:15] local.ERROR: Serialization of 'Illuminate\Http\UploadedFile' is not allowed {"userId":57,"email":"info#test.com","exception":"[object] (Exception(code: 0): Serialization of 'Illuminate\\Http\\UploadedFile' is not allowed at /Users/dsfsdf/ah-website/user/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Session/Store.php:128)
[stacktrace]
How can I add the url to the JSON string in the database? Uploading single images works.

Answer 1

What I could think of is that the processImage method cannot handle multiple uploaded files in the request.
Also, IMO, this method should actually receive the UploadedFile object instead of the entire request.
So, the code would be similar to:
$images = $house->images;
foreach ($request->images as $uploadedFile) {
$images[] = $this->processImage($uploadedFile, $user->id, $house->id);
}
$house->images = $images;
$house->save();
Also, if you defined the images attribute as array in the model, there is no need to decode/encode it as laravel already does it.