Difference between save, fill, create in laravel eloquent

Question

So i am new to laravel, I don't know the difference between save, fill and create in laravel eloquent. can anybody describe it?

Answer 1

save() method is when you already assign a value to a model instance. for example

$user = new User;
$user->name = "anything";
$user->save();
dd($user); // {'id': 1, 'name': 'anything'}

save() can also for update a value

$user = User::first(); // { 'id': 1, 'name': "anything" }
$user->name = "change";
$user->save();
dd($user); // {id: 1, name: "change"}

create() is a static function, need array parameter to create a new record

$user = User::create(['name' => 'new user']);
dd($user); // {id: 2, name: 'new user'}

fill() is same like save() method but without create a new record. need to create a new instance before can use fill()

$user = new User;
$user->fill(['name' => 'last user']);
echo count(User::all()); // We count users on DB and result is 2
$user->save(); // This will save 'last user' to DB
echo count(User::all()); // result is 3

Answer 2

The are kinda the same, but not quite.

//Creating User with fill()
$user = new User();
$user->fill($validatedUserData);
$user->save();

//Creating User with create();
$user = User::create($validatedUserData);

As you can see, create can do all of 3 lines(with fill function) with just one line. That's essentially a quality of life feature.

Both of this shown above does the same thing.

With that being said, you'd probably want to use create() when making a new entry. But for updating an item, it's better to just do something like this:

public function update(User $user, Request $request){
    $validatedUserData = $request->validate([
        //Validation logic here
    ]);

    $user->fill($validatedUserData);
    $user->save();


}

Note: You need to mark fields as fillable to use those fields with create() or fill().