Updating form in Laravel goes wrong

Question

This may be a very simple question, but I can't figure it out! and that's frustrating. I do my best to explain everything step by step.

• This a small Todo list project in Laravel 8
• A user can create a Project.
• When user clicks on a created project, he goes to the project page (show page)

ShowController.php

public function show(Project $project)
 {
    return view('projects.show', compact('project'));
 }

• In the show page the user can add comments via a textarea form field.

show.blade.php

<form action="{{ route('project.update',['project' => $project]) }}" method="post">
  @csrf
  @method('PUT')
  <textarea name="notes" placeholder="Add notes">{{ $project->notes ?? '' }}</textarea>
  <button type="submit">Save</button>
</form>

• Where it goes wrong is here, by updating the project! as soon as the user enters something in the comments field and clicks save, the form indicates that the following items are required:
• The owner_id, title, description field are required. While the model is sent to the show blade page and then in the form action route. What am I doing wrong here?

UpdateController.php

public function update(ProjectRequest $request, Project $project)
 {
  $validated = $request->validated();
  $project->update($validated);
  return redirect($project->path());
 }

ProjectRequest.php

public function rules(): array
{
  return [
      'owner_id' => 'required',
      'title' => 'required',
      'description' => 'required',
      'notes' => 'nullable',
        ];

web.php

use App\Http\Controllers\Projects\CreateController;
use App\Http\Controllers\Projects\IndexController;
use App\Http\Controllers\Projects\ShowController;
use App\Http\Controllers\Projects\StoreController;
use App\Http\Controllers\Projects\UpdateController;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Route;

Route::get('/', [IndexController::class, 'index'])->name('project.index');
Route::get('/projects/create', [CreateController::class, 'create'])->name('project.create');
Route::post('/projects', [StoreController::class, 'store'])->name('project.store');
Route::get('/projects/{project}', [ShowController::class, 'show'])->name('project.show');
Route::put('/projects/{project}', [UpdateController::class, 'update'])->name('project.update');

migration

 public function up()
    {
        Schema::create('projects', function (Blueprint $table) {
            $table->id();
            $table->unsignedBigInteger('owner_id');
            $table->string('title');
            $table->text('description');
            $table->text('notes')->nullable();
            $table->timestamps();

            $table->foreign('owner_id')
                ->references('id')
                ->on('users')
                ->onDelete('cascade');
        });
    }

Answer 1

You have required rules for fields that does not exist in form. So validation correctly fails.

If you use these rules for storing data, and want different one for updating, then you have at least three solutions:

1. Make separate form request file. So instead ProjectRequest do for ex. ProjectUpdateRequest and ProjectStoreRequest.
2. Use single Request, but detect if it is Update or Store inside rules() function, and return different rules array based on it. Related question: Laravel form request validation on store and update use same validation
3. Don't use custom FormRequest at all for Update, just make this single validation inside controller update() function. https://laravel.com/docs/8.x/validation#quick-writing-the-validation-logic

Option 2 seems to be best solution, because you will not have to repeat validation rules for "notes" input in multiple places - everything will be in single file.

Answer 2

If the fields are not required then take them out of your $required array and it should work.

Answer 3

When injecting a model ID to a route or controller action, you will often query the database to retrieve the model that corresponds to that ID. Laravel route model binding provides a convenient way to automatically inject the model instances directly into your routes. For example, instead of injecting a user's ID, you can inject the entire User model instance that matches the given ID. Reference

show.blade.php

<form action="{{ route('project.update',['project' => $project->id]) }}" method="post">
  @csrf
  @method('PUT')
  <textarea name="notes" placeholder="Add notes">{{ $project->notes ?? '' }}</textarea>
  <button type="submit">Save</button>
</form>

Also, to update a column, you do not need to validate and update all the columns.

UpdateController.php

  public function update(Request $request, Project $project)
     {
      $request->validate([
            'title' => 'nullable|string',
        ]);
      $project->update(['notes' => $request->notes ?? '']);
      return redirect($project->path());
     }

Note: Add use Illuminate\Http\Request; to the first UpdateController.php file.