Laravel Update Query

Question

I am trying to update a User on the basis of the email not there id, is there a way of doing this without raw queries.

Currently the error

{"error":{"type":"ErrorException","message":"Creating default object from empty value","file":"C:\wamp\www\celeb-jim\app\controllers\SignupController.php","line":189}}

My Code

    public function changeAccountStatus ($plan, $userEmail ){
        $UpdateDetails = User::where('email', '=',  $userEmail)->first();
        $UpdateDetails->member_type = $plan;
        $UpdateDetails->save();
    }

Answer 1

You could use the Laravel query builder, but this is not the best way to do it.

Check Wader's answer below for the Eloquent way - which is better as it allows you to check that there is actually a user that matches the email address, and handle the error if there isn't.

DB::table('users')         ->where('email', $userEmail)  // find your user by their email         ->limit(1)  // optional - to ensure only one record is updated.         ->update(array('member_type' => $plan));  // update the record in the DB.  

If you have multiple fields to update you can simply add more values to that array at the end.

Answer 2

This error would suggest that User::where('email', '=', $userEmail)->first() is returning null, rather than a problem with updating your model.

Check that you actually have a User before attempting to change properties on it, or use the firstOrFail() method.

$UpdateDetails = User::where('email', $userEmail)->first();  if (is_null($UpdateDetails)) {     return false; } 

or using the firstOrFail() method, theres no need to check if the user is null because this throws an exception (ModelNotFoundException) when a model is not found, which you can catch using App::error() http://laravel.com/docs/4.2/errors#handling-errors

$UpdateDetails = User::where('email', $userEmail)->firstOrFail(); 

Answer 3

Try doing it like this.

User::where('email', $userEmail)
       ->update([
           'member_type' => $plan
        ]);