I have this application where I am trying to get the the author of a question to be able to mark an answer as the best answer.
I have an AcceptAnswerController created which has been registered in the routes/web.php file as below:
AcceptAnswerController.php
class AcceptAnswerController extends Controller
{
public function __invoke(Answer $answer)
{
$this->authorize('accept', $answer);
$answer->question->acceptBestAnswer($answer);
return back();
}
}
web.php
Route::get('/', function () {
return view('welcome');
});
Auth::routes();
Route::get('/home', 'HomeController@index')->name('home');
Route::resource('questions', 'QuestionsController')->except('show');
Route::resource('questions.answers', 'AnswersController')->only(['store', 'edit', 'update', 'destroy']);
Route::get('questions/{slug}', 'QuestionsController@show')->name('questions.show');
Route::post('answers/{answer}/accept', 'AcceptAnswerController')->name('answers.accept');
In my Answers view, i have the following:
<div class="row mt-4">
<div class="col-md-12">
<div class="card">
<div class="card-body">
<div class="card-title">
<h2>{{ $answersCount . " " . str_plural('Answer', $answersCount) }}</h2>
</div>
<hr>
@include ('layouts._messages')
@foreach ($answers as $answer)
<div class="media">
<div class="d-fex flex-column vote-controls">
<a title="This answer is useful" class="vote-up">
<i class="fas fa-caret-up fa-3x"></i>
</a>
<span class="votes-count">1230</span>
<a title="This answer is not useful" class="vote-down off">
<i class="fas fa-caret-down fa-3x"></i>
</a>
@can ('accept', $answer)
<a title="Mark this answer as best answer"
class="{{ $answer->status }} mt-2"
onclick="event.preventDefault(); document.getElementById('answer-{{ $answer->id }}').submit();"
>
<i class="fas fa-check fa-2x"></i>
</a>
<form id="answer-{{ $answer->id }}" action="{{ route('answers.accept', ['answer' => $answer->id]) }}" method="POST" style="display:none;">
@csrf
</form>
@else
@if ($answer->is_best)
<a title="The question owner accepted this answer as best answer"
class="{{ $answer->status }} mt-2"
>
<i class="fas fa-check fa-2x"></i>
</a>
@endif
@endcan
</div>
<div class="media-body">
{!! $answer->body_html !!}
<div class="row">
<div class="col-4">
<div class="ml-auto">
@can ('update', $answer)
<a href="{{ route('questions.answers.edit', ['question' => $question->id, 'answer' => $answer->id]) }}" class="btn btn-sm btn-outline-info">Edit</a>
@endcan
@can ('delete', $answer)
<form class="form-delete" method="post" action="{{ route('questions.answers.destroy', [$question->id, $answer->id]) }}">
@method('DELETE')
@csrf
<button type="submit" class="btn btn-sm btn-outline-danger" onclick="return confirm('Are you sure?')">Delete</button>
</form>
@endcan
</div>
</div>
<div class="col-4"></div>
<div class="col-4">
<span class="text-muted">Answered {{ $answer->created_date }}</span>
<div class="media mt-2">
<a href="{{ $answer->user->url }}" class="pr-2">
<img src="{{ $answer->user->avatar }}">
</a>
<div class="media-body mt-1">
<a href="{{ $answer->user->url }}">{{ $answer->user->name }}</a>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<hr>
@endforeach
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
Once the author of the question clicks on the check icon, it should mark the answer as the best answer but i get the following error:
Sorry, the page you are looking for could not be found
I see that the answer id is missing in the url as follows:
when it should actually be something like this:
I can't seem to figure out why as i passed it as a route parameter in the form action. Same thing happens if a user is trying to edit his answer.
So, after scrutinizing my code a bit more carefully everything else seemed okay the controller, routes, views. I was able to isolate the problem down to this region
@can ('accept', $answer)
<a title="Mark this answer as best answer"
class="{{ $answer->status }} mt-2"
onclick="event.preventDefault(); document.getElementById('answer-{{ $answer->id }}').submit();"
>
<i class="fas fa-check fa-2x"></i>
</a>
<form id="answer-{{ $answer->id }}" action="{{ route('answers.accept', ['answer' => $answer->id]) }}" method="POST" style="display:none;">
@csrf
</form>
@endcan
I was certian the $answer->id was supposed to return the correct id but i wasn't too sure about the $answer->status so I decided to check its accessor defined in the Answer model.
public function getStatusAttribute()
{
return $this->isBest() ? 'vote-accepted' : '';
}
public function isBest()
{
return $this->id = $this->question->best_answer_id; /** here is the problem **/
}
There the problem was staring right back at me. The isBest method above was supposed to return a boolean value but i was mistakingly assigning. This was the simple fix.
public function isBest()
{
return $this->id === $this->question->best_answer_id; /** here is the problem **/
}