File uploads in Laravel - php

Question

I'm just starting out with Laravel and trying to get file uploads working using Dropzone JS. I can upload files successfully, but they're landing in app/Http/Controllers, where they're not then publicly accessible.
It seems to be treating this directory as the root, so if I specify /uploads as the folder then they'll go in app/Http/Controllers/uploads (which is obviously no good either). Using ..s doesn't seem to have any effect.
This is my store method for the file uploads:
$ds = DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR;
$storeFolder = '';
if ( ! empty($_FILES)) {
$tempFile = $_FILES['file']['tmp_name'];
$targetPath = dirname( __FILE__ ) . $ds. $storeFolder . $ds;
$targetFile = $targetPath. $_FILES['file']['name'];
move_uploaded_file($tempFile,$targetFile);
}
I've also tried a number of other methods I found (below) but I get 500 errors in Chrome's element inspector with those.
From official docs
$path = $request->file('file')->store('uploads');
From a tutorial I found
$file = $request->file('file');
$destinationPath = '/';
$file->move($destinationPath,$file->getClientOriginalName());
From another tutorial
$uploadedFile = $request->file('file');
$filename = time().$uploadedFile->getClientOriginalName();
Storage::disk('local')->putFileAs(
'/'.$filename,
$uploadedFile,
$filename
);
The current method seems fine but just needs to store files in public/uploads.

Answer 1

Use this path instead:
$targetPath = public_path().'/uploads/';

Answer 2

I also suggest making a perfect route for our storage path so when someone adds hostname/storage it will not show your directory to someone only files can be accessible
Route::get('storage/{filename}', function ($filename)
{
$path = storage_path('public/' . $filename);
if (!File::exists($path)) {
abort(404);
}
$file = File::get($path);
$type = File::mimeType($path);
$response = Response::make($file, 200);
$response->header("Content-Type", $type);
return $response;
});