[FIXED] How to send a response from a method that is not the controller method?

Issue

I've got a Controller.php whose show($id) method is hit by a route.

public function show($id)
{
    // fetch a couple attributes from the request ...

    $this->checkEverythingIsOk($attributes);

    // ... return the requested resource.
    return $response;
}

Now, in checkEverythingIsOk(), I perform some validation and authorization stuff. These checks are common to several routes within the same controller, so I'd like to extract these checks and call the method everytime I need to perform the same operations.

The problem is, I'm unable to send some responses from this method:

private function checkEverythingIsOk($attributes)
{
    if (checkSomething()) {
        return response()->json('Something went wrong'); // this does not work - it will return, but the response won't be sent.
    }

    // more checks...
    return response()->callAResponseMacro('Something else went wrong'); // does not work either.

    dd($attributes); // this works.
    abort(422); // this works too.
}

Note: Yes, I know in general one can use middleware or validation services to perform the checks before the request hits the controller, but I don't want to. I need to do it this way.

Solution

You are probably looking for this:

function checkEverythingIsOk() {
    if (checkSomething()) {
        return Response::json('Something went wrong');
    }
    if(checkSomethingElse()) {
        return Response::someMacro('Something else is wrong')
    }
    return null; // all is fine
}

And in the controller method:

$response = $this->checkEverythingIsOk();
if($response !== null) { // $response instanceof Response
    return $response;
}

Answered By - Voyowsky