Laravel 5 - generic document management - laravel-5

Question

I have a system where you can create different types of unique documents. For instance, one document is called Project Identified and this expects certain inputs. Originally, I had a database table for each unique document type, but this was getting messy fast. So, I created a database structure that was more generic, and came up with the following
So, I create a project. Within the projects show page, I can select the type of document I want to create e.g.
<li>{!! link_to_route('projects.documents.create', 'Project Identified', array($project->id, 'documentType' => 'projectIdentified')) !!}</li>
Now if I select to create a Project Identified document, it uses the generic Document Controller to handle things. Because the link to route has a documentType param, I can grab the value of this from the url. As such, in my Document Controllers create function, I am doing the following to display the correct view for the document
public function create(Project $project)
{
$documentType = $_GET["documentType"];
if($documentType == "projectIdentified") {
return View::make('projectIdentifiedDoc.create', compact('project'));
}
}
This view has a form which is binded
{!! Form::model(new App\Document, [
'class'=>'form-horizontal',
'route' => ['projects.documents.store', $project->id]
]) !!}
However, within the document controllers store function, I once again need to get the documentType. How can I pass this within the forms model? Also, is this the correct way to do this or is there a more efficient way?
Thanks

Answer 1

Have you read the documentation on relationships?
https://laravel.com/docs/5.2/eloquent-relationships
You need to define the relationship within your model.
So if a document only has one documentType, within your document model, you would define
public function documentType()
{
return $this->hasOne('App\documentType');
}
The different types of relationship, how to define them, and then how to access that data, is all very well documented.