Laravel 5.4: In-Place Editing with Ajax - ajax

Question

The page I currently have shows a table that dynamically generates rows showing user information. Each row has an Edit button that, when clicked, turns the respective cells into inputs, and turns the Edit button into a Save button. When that button's clicked, the input values for that user's row should be stored into the database.
I admittedly don't have a lot of experience with Ajax, but I've been looking online and I do believe I'm following the general procedure for calling a Controller function through an Ajax call properly. However, I'm still getting a 500 error when I try to test it. I believe it may be in how I am obtaining the request and sending back the response, but I'm unsure of the specific error.
My code contains as follows:
home.blade.php
....
#foreach($users as $user)
<tr id="row{{ loop->iteration }}>
<input type='text' id='first_name_input_row{{ loop->iteration }}'>
<input type='text' id='last_name_input_row{{ loop->iteration }}'>
<input type="button" id="save_button_row{{ $loop->iteration }}" class="btn btn-btn-submit" value="Save" class="save" onclick="save_row('{{ $loop->iteration }}', {{ $user }})">
</tr>
#endforeach
....
<script>
function save_row(num, user)
{
var id = 'row' + num;
$.ajax({
method: 'post',
url: '/update-table',
data: {
'_token': $('input[name=_token]').val(),
'first_name': $('input[id=first_name_input_' + id + ']').val(),
'last_name': $('input[id=last_name_input_' + id + ']').val(),
'user': user
},
success: function(response){
console.log("It worked!");
console.log(response);
},
error: function(jqXHR, textStatus, errorThrown) {
console.log("It failed!");
console.log(jqXHR);
console.log("AJAX error: " + textStatus + ' : ' + errorThrown);
}
});
}
</script>
HomeController.php
public function updateTable(Users $users){
$user = request()->input('employee');
$first_name = request()->input('first_name');
$last_name = request()->input('last_name');
$users->editUser($user, $first_name, $last_name);
return response()->json($user);
}
Users.php
public function editUser($user, $first_name, $last_name) {
$user->first_name = $first_name;
$user->last_name = $last_name;
$user->save();
}

Answer 1

Use laravel resource controllers to simply create a CRUD. If you are updating you need method PUT not post. I don't know if your Ajax url is ok but you can use {{ route('user.update') }} where user.update should be the name of the route to the update function of the controller. Using resources by default is that one.
Then you can do everything inside the controller
public function update(Request $request, $id){
$user = User::find($id);
$user->first_name = $request->input('first_name');
$user->last_name = $request->input('last_name');
$user->save();
return response()->json({'success' : 'message'});
}

Answer 2

Your question is not very clear. Did you add <input name="_token" type="hidden" value="{{ csrf_token() }}"> to your form for example?
Angus Simons is right about the PUT, and you may have forgotten preventDefault().
function save_row(num, user)
{
var id = 'row' + num;
$.preventDefault();
$.ajax({
method: 'put',
url: '{{ route('user.update') }},
data: {
'_token': $('input[name=_token]').val(),
'first_name': $('input[id=first_name_input_' + id + ']').val(),
'last_name': $('input[id=last_name_input_' + id + ']').val(),
'user': user
},
success: function(response){
console.log("It worked!");
console.log(response);
},
error: function(jqXHR, textStatus, errorThrown) {
console.log("It failed!");
console.log(jqXHR);
console.log("AJAX error: " + textStatus + ' : ' + errorThrown);
}
});
}
And your route:
Route::put('user/update', 'homeController#updateTable')->route('user.update');
The HomeController.php looks fine.

Answer 3

I eventually managed to figure out the issue with this, which was due to simple typos in some of my variables. I somewhat regret making this question as hastily as I did, and I do apologize for basically letting this sit as long as I did:
If anyone's interested, a sort of "follow-up" question to this piece can be found here