Laravel lumen : Post API method

Question is quite simple, I am using dingo package, Currently below is my code for an API call.

public function publishApplicant(Request $request,$id){
    $changeStatus = AppUser::where('id', $id)->update(array('admin_published' => 1));

    if($changeStatus){
        return response()->json([
            'message' => 'Applicant published.',
            'code' => 200,
            'status' => 1
        ], 200);
    }

    return response()->json([
        'message' => 'Applicant published.',
        'code' => 500,
        'status' => 0
    ], 200);
}

What can be improved in the above code?

Not a big improvement, but since $changeStatus is responsible for a different 'code' and 'status' and the rest is identical, we may do something like the following:

public function publishApplicant(Request $request,$id)
{
    $changeStatus = AppUser::where('id', $id)->update([
        'admin_published' => 1
    ]);

    return response()->json([
        'code'    => $changeStatus ? 200 : 500,
        'message' => 'Applicant published.',
        'status'  => $changeStatus ? 1 : 0
    ], 200);
}

I’ve also applied some PSR-2 coding style adaptments, nothing too fancy but it makes it a bit more readable.

Anyway you may want to change the message in case of failure.

You could store the response in a variable and only call return once. That seems cleaner. Also, put constants like messages and HTTP codes into constant variables.