Laravel 4, delete image within a post method / possible? - php

Question

I am trying to delete an old user image, if the user updates his profile picture. I am using Laravel 4.1 and a resourceful UsersController.
Updating the picture works perfectly fine. A new one is saved in my folder and the file nave is overwritten in the database. However, I would like to delete the old image. Therefore I have the following code, which works fine if I use it on an empty page with route get 'test' for example
$oldimage = Auth::user()->profile_picture;
File::delete('img/profile_pictures/users/' . $oldimage);
Everytime I try to implement this into the process of updating the image, the old one is not deleted. I have already in mind that I have to delete the old one before overwriting the file name.
Does this have to do anything with the POST method the Controller uses for updating? How could I fix it?
public function update($id){
$validation = Validator::make(
Input::all(), [
'name'=>'required',
'surname'=>'required',
'email'=>'required',
'email' => 'email']);
if($validation->fails()){
return Redirect::to(
'dashboard#profile'
)->withInput()->withErrors(
$validation->messages());
}
$user = User::find($id);
$user->name = Input::get('name');
$user->surname = Input::get('surname');
$user->email = Input::get('email');
if (Input::hasFile('profile_picture_update')) {
$oldimage = Auth::user()->profile_picture;
File::delete('img/profile_pictures/users/' . $oldimage);
}
$imageFile = Input::file('profile_picture_update');
$newprofile_picture = Image::make(
$imageFile->getRealPath()
)->resize(400, null, true)->crop(400, 400);
$name = time() . '-' .
Input::get('name') .
'-' . Input::get('surname') .
'.' . $imageFile->getClientOriginalExtension();
// $name = time() . '-' . $profile_picture->getClientOriginalName();
// Below the profile_picture variable is overrridden.
$newprofile_picture = $newprofile_picture->save(
public_path().'/img/profile_pictures/users/'.$name
);
$user->profile_picture = $name;
$user->save();
return Redirect::to(
'dashboard#profile'
)->with(
'updatemessage', 'Yep! Deine Änderungen wurden gespeichert.'
);
}

Answer 1

why don't you use the User model you just retrieved to get the old image?
if (Input::hasFile('profile_picture_update')) {
$oldimage = Auth::user()->profile_picture;
File::delete('img/profile_pictures/users/' . $oldimage);
}
replace it with
if (Input::hasFile('profile_picture_update')) {
$oldimage = $user->profile_picture;
File::delete('img/profile_pictures/users/' . $oldimage);
}

Answer 2

I found a way to do this by creating a helper function an then calling the helper function in the controller method.
http://laravel.com/docs/helpers