not getting checkbox element value from form - laravel

Question

I have a small form in Laravel 5.4 which has a checkbox and a text box. The issue is that when I post the form, the checkbox value is not coming through the request. I have custom styling on the checkbox but surely it can't be that?
I've been looking at this for a while, and everything looks normal. My code is below:
<form method="post" action="{{ route('admin.settings.save') }}">
{{ csrf_field() }}
<div class="row">
<div class="col-md-6">
<div class="form-group">
<label><b>Site Name</b></label>
<p>This is the name of your LaravelFileManager instance.</p>
<input name="siteName" id="siteName" class="form-control" value="{{ \App\Helpers\ConfigHelper::getValue('site_name') }}" />
</div>
<div class="form-group">
<label><b>Footer Message</b></label>
<p>You can customise the footer message for the application.</p>
<div class="checkbox">
<label>
<input type="checkbox" name="showFooter" id="showFooter" checked="{{ \App\Helpers\ConfigHelper::getValue('show_footer_message') }}"> Show footer message
</label>
</div>
</div>
<button type="submit" class="btn btn-success"><i class="fa fa-save"></i> Save Changes</button>
</div>
</div>
</form>
My controller code is as such:
public function saveSettings(Request $request) {
$siteName = $request->input('siteName');
$showFooter = $request->input('showFooter');
ConfigHelper::setValue('site_name', $siteName);
ConfigHelper::setValue('show_footer_message', $showFooter);
return redirect()->route('admin.settings')->with('result', 'Settings saved.');
}
My route:
Route::post('settings/save', ['uses' => 'Admin\SettingsController#saveSettings'])->name('admin.settings.save');
I've also done a vardump on the $request variable and even that is missing the check box value:
array(2) {
["_token"]=> string(40) "sgyO7Kkz1ljsYEZ1G5nkj4uVbmFZqiTMbpK9P6Bi"
["siteName"]=> string(16) "File Manager 1.0"
}
It's missing the 'showFooter' variable.
Not quite sure where to go with this one. Any help appreciated.

Answer 1

So I got this working in the end. Using help from the comments:
public function saveSettings(Request $request) {
$siteName = $request->input('siteName');
$showFooter = $request->has('showFooter');
ConfigHelper::setValue('site_name', $siteName);
ConfigHelper::setValue('show_footer_message', $showFooter);
return redirect()->route('admin.settings')->with('result', 'Settings saved.');
}
For some reason, using $request->input('showFooter') wasn't working properly. $request->get('showFooter') brings a result when true, so adding the ternary makes it work every time.