Insert multiple values on multiple rows - laravel

Question

I have a form that has a dropdown where the user can select up to 5 countries.
I have two related tables, users and countries, where each user can have multiple countries selected.
The users table:
+----+----------+----------------------+
| id | username | description |
+----+----------+----------------------+
| 1 | user1 | Some description. |
| 2 | user2 | Another description. |
+----+----------+----------------------+
The countries table:
+----+---------+---------------+
| id | user_id | country |
+----+---------+---------------+
| 1 | 1 | Canada |
| 2 | 1 | United States |
| 3 | 1 | France |
| 4 | 2 | Spain |
| 4 | 2 | Italy |
+----+---------+---------------+
As you can see, the country dropdown values should each have their own row in the table.
Here is my UserController so far (it only inserts into the users table for now):
$user = new User;
$user->username = Input::get('username');
$user->description = Input::get('description');
$user->save();
How would I insert multiple dropdown values such that each has its own row? What should my models look like for this to work?

Answer 1

If you're gonna use eloquent to do it, here's a suggestion:
//in your User model
public function countries()
{
return $this->hasMany('Country');
}
//insert from the controller
$countries = json_decode(Input::get('countries'), true); //assuming you use json to submit the multiple countries
$user_countries = array();
foreach($countries as $country)
{
$user_countries[]=new Country(array('country'=>$country));
}
//save the countries into the DB
$user->countries()->saveMany($user_countries);
for more info, do refer to the documentation:
http://laravel.com/docs/4.2/eloquent#inserting-related-models