Difference between save, fill, create in laravel eloquent - laravel

Question

So i am new to laravel,
I don't know the difference between save, fill and create in laravel eloquent.
can anybody describe it?

Answer 1

save() method is when you already assign a value to a model instance. for example
$user = new User;
$user->name = "anything";
$user->save();
dd($user); // {'id': 1, 'name': 'anything'}
save() can also for update a value
$user = User::first(); // { 'id': 1, 'name': "anything" }
$user->name = "change";
$user->save();
dd($user); // {id: 1, name: "change"}
create() is a static function, need array parameter to create a new record
$user = User::create(['name' => 'new user']);
dd($user); // {id: 2, name: 'new user'}
fill() is same like save() method but without create a new record. need to create a new instance before can use fill()
$user = new User;
$user->fill(['name' => 'last user']);
echo count(User::all()); // We count users on DB and result is 2
$user->save(); // This will save 'last user' to DB
echo count(User::all()); // result is 3

Answer 2

The are kinda the same, but not quite.
//Creating User with fill()
$user = new User();
$user->fill($validatedUserData);
$user->save();
//Creating User with create();
$user = User::create($validatedUserData);
As you can see, create can do all of 3 lines(with fill function) with just one line. That's essentially a quality of life feature.
Both of this shown above does the same thing.
With that being said, you'd probably want to use create() when making a new entry. But for updating an item, it's better to just do something like this:
public function update(User $user, Request $request){
$validatedUserData = $request->validate([
//Validation logic here
]);
$user->fill($validatedUserData);
$user->save();
}
Note: You need to mark fields as fillable to use those fields with create() or fill().