Creating New Forms in Laravel 5 and Submitting Them - php

Question

I wish to clarify the steps to get a new form properly submitted to my database using Laravel 5.2 and Bootstrap 3.
I have the login/register pages set up properly using Laravel's defaults, and they work fine. I now want to create a user profile page accessible to authenticated users. I am using one row in the database for all of their user info. Some fields were filled in during registration, and now I want them to have access to additional fields (while restricting access to certain registration fields like user name).
In the example code below, there are fields to upload a personal photo, enter a first name, and enter a last name. (None of these were done during registration.)
What I have already done (all code is below):
Create the view profile.blade.php
Create a controller profileController.php
Update routes.php in the controller directory.
A note:
When I try to submit the form as it appears below, I get, Type error: Argument 1 passed to App\Http\Controllers\ProfileController::update() must be of the type array, none given.
What are the next steps required to get this page working properly?
profile.blade.php:
#extends('layouts.app')
#section('content')
<div class="container" style="padding-top: 30px;">
<h1 class="page-header">User Profile</h1>
<div class="row">
<!-- left column -->
<div class="col-md-4 col-sm-6 col-xs-12">
<div class="text-center">
<i class="fa fa-user fa-5x"></i>
<h6>Please upload a photo...</h6>
<input type="file" class="text-center center-block well well-sm">
</div>
</div>
<!-- edit form column -->
<div class="col-md-8 col-sm-6 col-xs-12 personal-info">
<form class="form-horizontal" role="form" method="POST" action="{{ url('/profile') }}">
{!! csrf_field() !!}
<div class="form-group">
<label class="col-lg-3 control-label">First name:</label>
<div class="col-lg-8">
<input class="form-control" value="<?php echo Auth::user()->firstname; ?>" id="firstname" name="firstname" placeholder="First..." type="text">
</div>
</div>
<div class="form-group">
<label class="col-lg-3 control-label">Last name:</label>
<div class="col-lg-8">
<input class="form-control" value="<?php echo Auth::user()->lastname; ?>" id="lastname" name="lastname" placeholder="Last..." type="text">
</div>
</div>
<div class="form-group">
<label class="col-md-3 control-label"></label>
<div class="col-md-8">
<button type="submit" class="btn btn-primary">
<i class="fa fa-btn fa-user"></i>Submit
</button>
<span></span>
<input class="btn btn-default" value="Cancel" type="reset">
</div>
</div>
</form>
</div>
</div>
</div>
#endsection
profileController.php:
<?php
namespace App\Http\Controllers;
use App\Http\Requests;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
class ProfileController extends Controller
{
/**
* Create a new controller instance.
*
* #return void
*/
public function __construct()
{
$this->middleware('auth');
}
/**
* Show the application dashboard.
*
* #return \Illuminate\Http\Response
*/
public function index()
{
return view('profile');
}
protected function update(array $data)
{
return User::update([
'firstname' => $data['firstname'],
'lastname' => $data['lastname'],
]);
}
}
And I added the following in the routes middleware:
Route::get('/profile', 'ProfileController#index');
Route::post('/profile', 'ProfileController#update');

Answer 1

It's a protocol mismatch, since you're POSTing your form. You need to change your route to
route::post('/profile', 'ProfileController#index');
Using a validator is a great idea, since it will make sure that your input is exactly what you need it to be, and all required fields are filled out.
Your update function should look something like this:
public function update(Request $request)
{
$first_name = $request->input('firstname');
$last_name = $request->input('lastname');
$id = Auth::user()->id;
$user = \App\User::find($id);
$user->firstname = $first_name;
$user->lastname = $last_name;
$user->save();
return view('profile');
// Sanitize, validate, before you do ANYTHING with update
// Instead of returning the update result, you can instead show another view or forward them to another page.
}