Laravel Tutorial · Requests and Responses · Lesson 8 of 27

Laravel Requests and Input

Read query strings, form fields, JSON bodies, headers and files from the Request object, with defaults and type helpers.

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The Request object

Type-hint Illuminate\Http\Request in a route or controller and Laravel injects the current request. The most useful methods:

Method	Returns
`$request->input('name', 'default')`	A value from the query string or body (form or JSON); dot notation for nested data
`$request->query('page')`	Only from the query string
`$request->only(['a', 'b'])` / `except([...])`	A subset of the input
`$request->has('x')`, `filled('x')`, `missing('x')`	Presence checks
`$request->integer('qty')`, `boolean('agree')`, `date('from')`	Typed values
`$request->header('X-Api-Key')`, `bearerToken()`	Headers
`$request->file('avatar')`	An uploaded file
`$request->method()`, `path()`, `url()`, `ip()`	Request details

Reading input from a request

<?php
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Route;

Route::post('/orders', function (Request $request) {
    return [
        'product' => $request->input('product'),
        'qty' => $request->integer('qty', 1),
        'gift' => $request->boolean('gift'),
        'city' => $request->input('address.city', 'unknown'),     // dot notation for nested input
        'coupon_given' => $request->filled('coupon'),
        'page' => $request->query('page'),
        'only' => $request->only(['product', 'qty']),
        'token' => $request->bearerToken(),
    ];
});

visit('POST', '/orders?page=2', [
    'product' => 'Kettle', 'qty' => '3', 'gift' => 'yes', 'coupon' => '',
    'address' => ['city' => 'Lisbon'],
], ['Authorization' => 'Bearer abc123']);

Output

POST /orders?page=2 -> 200 {"product":"Kettle","qty":3,"gift":true,"city":"Lisbon","coupon_given":false,"page":"2","only":{"product":"Kettle","qty":"3"},"token":"abc123"}

Run this on your computer — see “Get Started” for setup.

Never pass $request->all() straight into a database create: validate first (next page) and use the validated data.

Test yourself

Which method reads a value only from the query string?

$request->input('page')
$request->query('page')
$request->header('page')
$request->file('page')

Show answer

Answer: $request->query('page')

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