Laravel - CreateMany if not exists - laravel

Question

I have a table that stores tags name as "tag"
tag
id->Integer(unique)
title->String;
url->string;(unique)
Also I have a table to store places named as place
place
id->Integer(unique)
title->string
latitude->string
longtitue->string
A place may have many tags, here is my place_tag table
place_tag
id->Integer(unique)
tag_id->Integer
place_id->Integer
when I try to update place I need to do this
1- check all tags posted.
2- add them to "tag" db if not created before
3- write relationship with tag and place
But I think Laravels ORM can handle it, I'm walking around but can't find a good solution.
Please see my update procedure what am I doing wrong.
public function update($id)
{
$place=Place::findOrFail($id);
$place->fill(Input::all());
$place->save();
$tags=explode(',',Input::get('tags'));
$tags_data=array();
foreach($tags as $tag) {
$tags_data[]=new Tag(array('title'=>$tag,'url'=>$tag));
}
$place->tags()->detach();
$place->tags()->saveMany($tags_data);
return Redirect::to('admin/places');
}

Answer 1

You can do it this way:
$tagIds = [];
foreach ($tags as $tag) {
$tag = trim($tag);
if ($tag == '') {
continue;
}
$fTag = Tag::firstOrCreate( [ 'title' => $tag, 'url' => $tag ] );
$tagIds[] = $fTag->id;
}
$place->tags()->sync($tagIds);
I assumed one Tag can be set to many Places (n:n relationship), so first you basically find tags and if it doesn't exist you create it and then using sync you synchronize relationship table (insert or remove data from pivot when necessary)