Update profile function - laravel

Question

I have a function that check updates the users profile info. Currently, if I put |unique:users in the validator every time I try to update the profile info on the form it will not let me because a user (which is me) has my email. So I figured out the unique means that nobody, including the current user can have the email that is being updated.
So I need to compare the current auth email to the one in the database. If it matches then it is ok to update the profile info. I know this is simple but I am not sure how to implement it and if that is the right logic.
So where in this code would I post if (Auth::user()->email == $email){..update email...} http://laravel.io/bin/GylBV#6 Also, is that the right way to do this?
public function editProfileFormSubmit()
{
$msg = 'Successfully Updated';
$user_id = Auth::id();
$user = User::find($user_id);
$first_name = Input::get('first_name');
$last_name = Input::get('last_name');
$email = Input::get('email');
$phone_number = Input::get('phone_number');
$validator = Validator::make(Input::all(), array(
'email' => 'required|email',
'first_name' => 'required',
'last_name' => 'required',
'phone_number' => 'required'
));
if ($validator->fails()) {
return Redirect::route('edit-profile')
->withErrors($validator)
->withInput();
}else{
if(Input::hasFile('picture')){
$picture = Input::file('picture');
$type = $picture->getClientMimeType();
$full_image = Auth::id().'.'.$picture->getClientOriginalExtension();
if($type == 'image/png' || $type == 'image/jpg' || $type == 'image/jpeg'){
$upload_success = $picture->move(base_path().'/images/persons/',
$full_image);
if($upload_success) {
$user->picture = $full_image;
} else {
$msg = 'Failed to upload picture.';
}
}else{
$msg = 'Incorrect image format.';
}
}
$user->first_name = $first_name;
$user->last_name = $last_name;
$user->email = $email;
$user->phone_number = $phone_number;
$user->save();
return Redirect::route('invite')->with('global', $msg);
}
}

Answer 1

Worry not, Laravel has already considered this potential issue! If you take a look at the docs for the unique validation rule you'll see that it can take some extra parameters. As it happens, you can give it an id to ignore when looking at the unique constraint. So what you need to do is work out the id for the current model to update and pass that in. In the case of updating a logged-in user's profile it's made easy by Auth::id() as you already have in your code.
$rules = [
'email' => ['required', 'email', 'unique:users,email,'.Auth::id()],
'first_name' => ['required'],
// etc...
];
Obviously I chose to use the array syntax for validation rules there, but you can do the same with the pip syntax too. In a less specific system (create-or-add in a crud postSave type action) you can still do it by simply dong something like $model = Post::find($id) and then if $model is null you're creating and you just use 'unique' whereas if $model is not null, use 'unique:table,field,'.$model->getKey().