How to add value to array without oerwritting and access those values - laravel

Question

Hello I'm trying to add products to a cart without overwritting the previous product added to the cart and without duplicating if the two products are the same but instead increment the quantity by 1.
Here's how i'm setting up my cart and adding products to it:
public function addToCart(Request $request)
{
$id = $request->product_id;
$product = Product::find($id);
$request->session()->put('cart', [
[
"id" => $product->id,
"name" => $product->name,
"price" => $product->price,
"image" => $product->image,
"quantity" => 1,],
]);
$cart = $request->session()->only(['cart']);
dd($cart);
return redirect('cart');
}
And this is what i get from the dd
array:1 [▼
"cart" => array:1 [▼
0 => array:5 [▼
"id" => 1
"name" => "name"
"price" => 42.42
"image" => "../image.jpg"
"quantity" => 1
]
]
]
I tried using put or cart[] = [product infos...] instead of push but it would still overwrite the previous product
Also I'm confused as to how to access each product stored in my cart individually, i can access to the whole cart via $request->session()->only(['cart']) but i can't find how to access the products of that cart.

Answer 1

Well the problem is in here:
$request->session()->put('cart', [
[
"id" => $product->id,
"name" => $product->name,
"price" => $product->price,
"image" => $product->image,
"quantity" => 1,],
]);
You create two arrays. So either change this part to:
$request->session()->put('cart', [
"id" => $product->id,
"name" => $product->name,
"price" => $product->price,
"image" => $product->image,
"quantity" => 1,
]);
or this part:
cart[] = [product infos...]
to
cart[0][] = [product infos...]
but not both.
Also, a better and more used practice is not to store the whole cart in session, but to store it in tables carts and cart_items and to store in session only a hash.