Handle form submission Laravel 5 - php

Question

I just start learning Laravel 5, and I want to know what the proper way to handle submitted forms. I found many tutorials where we create two separate actions, where first render form, and the second actually handle form. I am came from Symfony2, where we create a single action for both, render and handle submitted form, so I want to know I need to create two separate actions because thats Laravel-way, or I can place all logic into single action, I do this like the folowing, but I dont like code what I get:
public function create(Request $request)
{
if (Input::get('title') !== null) {
$v = Validator::make($request->all(), [
'title' => 'required|unique:posts',
'content' => 'required',
]);
if ($v->fails()) {
return redirect()->back()->withErrors($v->errors());
}
$post = new Post(Input::all());
if ($post->save()) {
return redirect('posts');
}
}
return view('add_post');
}
So can somebody give me advice how I need do this properly? Thanks!

Answer 1

One of the most important reason to create two actions is to avoid duplicate form submissions . You can read more about Post/Redirect/Get pattern.
Another important reason is the way you keep the code cleaner. Take a look at this first change:
public function showForm(){
return view('add_post');
}
public function create(Request $request)
{
$v = Validator::make($request->all(), [
'title' => 'required|unique:posts',
'content' => 'required',
]);
if ($v->fails()) {
return redirect()->back()->withErrors($v->errors());
}
$post = new Post(Input::all());
if ($post->save()) {
return redirect('posts');
}
return redirect()->route('show_form')->withMessage();
}
The first thing that you can notice is that create() function is not rendering any view, it is used to manage the creation logic (as the name itself suggests). That is OK if you plan to stay in low-profile, but what happens when you do need to add some others validations or even better, re-utilize the code in other controllers. For example, your form is a help tool to publish a comment and you want to allow only "authors-ranked" users to comment. This consideration can be manage more easily separating the code in specific actions instead making an if-if-if-if spaghetti. Again...
public function showForm(){
return view('add_post');
}
public function create(PublishPostRequest $request)
{
$post = new Post($request->all());
$post->save()
return redirect('posts');
}
Take a look on how PublishPostRequest request takes place in the appropriated function. Finally, in order to get the best of Laravel 5 you could create a request class to keep all the code related with validation and authorization inside it:
class PublishPostRequest extends Request{
public function rules(){
return [
'title' => 'required|unique:posts',
'content' => 'required',
]
}
public function authorize(){
$allowedToPost = \Auth::user()->isAuthor();
// if the user is not an author he can't post
return $allowedToPost;
}
}
One nice thing about custom request class class is that once is injected in the controller via function parameter, it runs automatically, so you do not need to worry about $v->fails()