Handling Form Requests
Forms are one of the most common ways users interact with a web application, whether they're signing up, submitting a comment, or updating a profile. Laravel provides a consistent way to receive and work with that submitted data.
Submitting a Form
A typical Blade form posts to a named route, and Laravel automatically expects a CSRF token to be present for any state-changing request made from a browser. This token is generated per session and verified automatically by Laravel's middleware.
Reading Submitted Data
Inside a controller, the incoming request is represented by Laravel's Request object, which is automatically injected when type-hinted in a method. From there, individual fields, all input, or only specific fields can be pulled out as needed.
| Method | What It Returns |
|---|---|
$request->input('name') | A single field's value |
$request->all() | Every submitted field as an array |
$request->only(['name','email']) | Just the specified fields |
$request->has('field') | Whether a given field was submitted |
$request->file('avatar') | An uploaded file, if one was included |
Good Practices for Handling Forms
- Always include Laravel's CSRF field in browser-submitted forms
- Never trust submitted data until it has been validated
- Redirect after a successful submission to avoid duplicate resubmissions
Reading form data is only half the job — before anything is saved, it needs to be checked for correctness, which is exactly where Laravel's validation system comes in.
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