laravel Referral System: Dealing with Cookies - php

Question

I made a simple referral system that when you create account it make referral link that you can send to individual so when they sign up using the link. On the user table the referred_id is entered to match the users id that sent the link.
http://localhost:8000/register/?ref=12
Only issue that i am having is when i refer a user the cookie is saved which is good but if i sign up without referring a user just using www.localhost/8000/register the cookie of the referred user is still entered in to the user table. But the referred_id on the user table should be null because i am not using the referral link? How do i fix this issue
App\Middleware\CheckReferral.php
<?php
namespace App\Http\Middleware;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use App\Http\Middleware\CheckReferral;
use Closure;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Cookie;
class CheckReferral
{
/**
* Handle an incoming request.
*
* #param \Illuminate\Http\Request $request
* #param \Closure $next
* #return mixed
*/
public function handle($request, Closure $next)
{
$response = $next($request);
// Check that there is not already a cookie set and that we have 'ref' in the url
if (! $request->hasCookie('referral') && $request->query('ref') ) {
// Add a cookie to the response that lasts 5 years (in minutes)
$response->cookie( 'referral', encrypt( $request->query('ref') ), 500 );
}
// if ref exist already in the cookie then show error page
else {
if ( $request->query('ref') ) {
return redirect('/error');
}
return $response;
}
return $response;
}
}
Auth\RegisterController.php
<?php
namespace App\Http\Controllers\Auth;
use Auth;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Cookie;
use App\User;
use App\Http\Controllers\Controller;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Hash;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Validator;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Auth\RegistersUsers;
class RegisterController extends Controller
{
/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Register Controller
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| This controller handles the registration of new users as well as their
| validation and creation. By default this controller uses a trait to
| provide this functionality without requiring any additional code.
|
*/
use RegistersUsers;
/**
* Where to redirect users after registration.
*
* #var string
*/
protected $redirectTo = '/home';
/**
* Create a new controller instance.
*
* #return void
*/
public function __construct()
{
$this->middleware('guest');
}
/**
* Get a validator for an incoming registration request.
*
* #param array $data
* #return \Illuminate\Contracts\Validation\Validator
*/
protected function validator(array $data)
{
return Validator::make($data, [
'name' => 'required|string|max:255',
'email' => 'required|string|email|max:255|unique:users',
'password' => 'required|string|min:6|confirmed',
]);
}
/**
* Create a new user instance after a valid registration.
*
* #param array $data
* #return \App\User
*/
protected function create(array $data)
{
$referred_by = Cookie::get('referral');
$user = User::create([
'name' => $data['name'],
'email' => $data['email'],
'password' => bcrypt($data['password']),
'referred_by' => $referred_by,
]);
return $user;
}
}

Answer 1

you should use only query parameters not the cookie if you want this behavior , if you use cookie here i.e.
$referred_by = Cookie::get('referral');
it will get value from the cookie if it exists. if you want only save $referred_by when you submit the query parameter like
http://localhost:8000/register/?ref=12
you should use
$referred_by = $request->query('ref');