Submitting a request in Laravel and sending mail - php

Question

I am trying to submit a form and send an email based on data submitted through the form, but it doesn't seem to be working because I don't get back the success message.
Controller
public function contact(Request $request)
{
$request = request()->validate([
'name' => 'required',
'email' => 'required| email',
'message' => 'required | max:1000',
]);
Mail::to('support#mail.com')->send(new contact($request));
return redirect()->back()->with("success", "You email has successfully been sent");
}
Form
#if (session('error'))
<div class="alert alert-danger">
{{ session('error') }}
</div>
#endif
#if (session('success'))
<div class="alert alert-success">
{{ session('success') }}
</div>
#endif
<form action="/contact" method="POST">
#csrf
<div class="col-md-12">
<input type="text" placeholder="Full Name" required name="name">
</div>
<div class="col-md-8">
<input type="text" placeholder="email" required name="email">
</div>
<div class="col-md-2">
<textarea name="message"></textarea>
</div>
<div class="col-md-12">
<button class="btn btn-black no-margin-bottom btn-small"
type="submit">Contact</button>
</div>
</form>
Route
`Route::post('/contact', 'HomeController#contact');`

Answer 1

If you're being redirected back to the form page without error messages or your sucess flash message then I am inclined to think the problem is in your template. Assuming you are using the laracasts/flash package your method should look like this
public function contact(Request $request)
{
$request = request()->validate([
'name' => 'required',
'email' => 'required| email',
'message' => 'required | max:1000'
]);
Mail::to('support#mail.com')->send(
new contact($request)
);
return redirect()->back()->with("success", "You email has successfully been sent");
}
redirect()->with() adds data to the session but it doesn't display a message unless you manually do so in the template like this
#if (session('sucess'))
<div class="alert alert-success">
{{ session('success') }}
</div>
#endif

Answer 2

Make sure you're displaying errors properly in your form, replace your session('error') block with the following:
#if($errors->any())
<div class="alert alert-danger">
<ul>
#foreach($errors->all() as $error)
<li>{{ $error }}</li>
#endforeach
</ul>
</div>
#endif
In your controller:
use App\Mail\Contact;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Mail;
class HomeController extends Controller
{
// ...
public function contact(Request $request)
{
// Note I'm not overwriting the $request variable.
// This method returns an array of the validated data.
$request->validate([
'name' => 'required',
'email' => 'required|email',
'message' => 'required|max:1000'
]);
Mail::to('support#mail.com')->send(new Contact($request));
return back()->with('success', 'Your email has successfully been sent');
}
}
Your mail class should look something like this:
namespace App\Mail;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use Illuminate\Bus\Queueable;
use Illuminate\Mail\Mailable;
use Illuminate\Queue\SerializesModels;
class Contact extends Mailable
{
use Queueable, SerializesModels;
protected $request;
public function __construct(Request $request)
{
$this->request = $request;
}
public function build()
{
// The request instance must be passed to the view...
return $this->markdown('emails.contact', [
'request' => $this->request
]);
}
}
You can now use the Request object in your email markdown (emails.contact). For example:
**Name**<br>
{{ $request->input('name') }}
**Email**<br>
{{ $request->input('email') }}
**Message**<br>
{{ $request->input('message') }}