dd($request->country_flag); returns null in laravel - laravel-5

Question

This is my form to upload a file:
<div class="col-lg-6 col-lg-offset-3">
<form method="post" action="{{ route('admin.country.store') }}" enctype="multipart/form-data">
<input type="hidden" name="_token" value="{{ csrf_token() }}">
<div class="form-group">
<label for="country_id">Country ID</label>
<input type="number" class="form-control" id="country_id" name="country_id">
</div>
<div class="form-group">
<label for="country_name">Country name</label>
<input class="form-control" type="text" id="country_name" name="country_name">
<p class="danger">{{ $errors->first('country_name') }}</p>
</div>
<div class="form-group">
<label for="alternate_title">Alternate Title</label>
<input class="form-control" type="text" id="alternate_title" name="alternate_title">
<p class="danger">{{ $errors->first('alternate_title') }}</p>
</div>
<div class="form-group">
<label for="country_flag">Country Flag</label>
<input class="" type="file" id="country_flag" name="country_flag">
<p class="danger">{{ $errors->first('country_flag') }}</p>
</div>
<div class="btn-group" role="group">
<button class="btn btn-default" type="reset">Reset</button>
<button class="btn btn-success" type="submit">Upload</button>
</div>
</form>
This is a function in my controller to handle form request.
public function store(Request $request)
{
$new_country = new SelectCountry();
$message = [
'required' => "This field can not be empty",
];
$this->validate($request, [
'country_name' => 'required',
'alternate_title' => 'required',
'country_flag' => 'required',
], $message);
dd($request->country_flag);
}
When I do dd($request->country_flag);, it returns null. It seems like file is not uploaded by the form.
What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

I'm not sure if you can or not access a file like you are doing. Try this:
$file = $request->file('country_flas');

Answer 2

Try this
$input = $request->all();
$file = $input['country_flag'];
dd($file);