Save and retrieve file in Laravel

Question

I have difficulty understanding the file save and retrieval in Laravel. I managed to get the file saved into correct path

$fileNameWithExt = $request->file('Agreement_file')->getClientOriginalName();
$fileName = pathinfo($fileNameWithExt, PATHINFO_FILENAME);
$extention  =$request->file('Agreement_file')->getClientOriginalExtension();
$filenameToStore = $fileName . '_' . $lab_id. '.'.$extention;
$request->Agreement_file->storeAs('agreements', $filenameToStore );

However not I want to create an a-tag to download the file, but cannot manage to get to download the file.

<a href="/storage/app/public/agreements/'. {{$filenameToStore}}" download="{{$filenameToStore}}">{{$filenameToStore}}</a>

The file download but I get the error "Failed- Server Problem". I do not want to use a same link as these files are confidential and should not be able to be downloaded outside the app.

Answer 1

Something like that?

Step 1:

Create table files id | filename | user_id.

Step 2:

Create model File

Step 3:

Add file row in table.

$fileNameWithExt = $request->file('Agreement_file')->getClientOriginalName();
$fileName = pathinfo($fileNameWithExt, PATHINFO_FILENAME);
$extention  =$request->file('Agreement_file')->getClientOriginalExtension();
$filenameToStore = $fileName . '_' . $lab_id. '.'.$extention;
$request->Agreement_file->storeAs('agreements', $filenameToStore );

File::create([
   'filename' => $filenameToStore,
   'user_id' => Auth::id()
]);

Step 4:

Create controller method download.

public function download(){
    $filename = $request->input('filename');

    $file = File::where('user_id', Auth::id())
        ->where('filename', $filename)
        ->firstOrFail();

    $path = Storage::path('agreements/' . $filename);

    if(Storage::exists($path)){
        return Response::download($path, $filename);
    }
}

Step 5:

Replace your link:

<a href="/path/download?filename='. {{$filenameToStore}}" download="{{$filenameToStore}}">{{$filenameToStore}}</a>

Or you can build it based on the file ID.