Comment/Post system in Laravel - laravel

Question

I can't seem to get relationships concrete in my head with Laravel. Having tried to follow the docs for eloquent orm, I still can't get my foreign keys to mean something (I update them manually). Right now I am trying to get a bulletin board system to work. A user can create a bulletin post, and here it is working in my controller:
public function editPost($id)
{
$user = User::find($id);
$user->bulletin = new Bulletin;//new post
$user->bulletin->creator_id = $id;//why doesn't it automatically update given the relationship?
$user->bulletin->type = Input::get('type');
$user->bulletin->title = Input::get('title');
$user->bulletin->content = Input::get('bulletinEdit');
$user->bulletin->save();
if(Input::hasFile('bulletinImage')){
$extension = Input::file('bulletinImage')->getClientOriginalExtension();
$fileName = str_random(9).'.'.$extension;
$user->bulletin->photo = new Photo;
$user->bulletin->photo->user_id = $id;
$user->bulletin->photo->type = Input::get('type');
$user->bulletin->photo->filename = $fileName;
$user->bulletin->photo->touch();
$user->bulletin->photo->save();
Input::file('bulletinImage')->move('public/images/bulletin/',$fileName);
}
return Redirect::to('bulletin');
}
If I have the relationship set up properly, shouldn't the creator_id be updated automatically? Here is what I have in my models:
Bulletin
<?php
class Bulletin extends Eloquent {
public function creator()
{
return $this->belongsTo('User');
}
public function comments()
{
return $this->hasMany('Comment');
}
public function type()
{
//if 1 then, etc
}
public function photos(){
return $this->hasMany('Photo');
}
}
User
<?php
use Illuminate\Auth\UserTrait;
use Illuminate\Auth\UserInterface;
use Illuminate\Auth\Reminders\RemindableTrait;
use Illuminate\Auth\Reminders\RemindableInterface;
class User extends Eloquent implements UserInterface, RemindableInterface {
use UserTrait, RemindableTrait;
/**
* The database table used by the model.
*
* #var string
*/
/**
* The attributes excluded from the model's JSON form.
*
* #var array
*/
protected $hidden = array('password', 'remember_token');
public function tags()
{
//TO REMOVE RECORD
//User::find(1)->tags()->detach();
return $this->belongsToMany('Tag');
}
public function createUser()
{
$password = Hash::make('secret');
}
public function bulletin()
{
return $this->hasMany('Bulletin','creator_id');
}
public function profile()
{
return $this->hasOne('Profile');
}
}
Could anybody give me some tips on tightening this up?

Answer 1

The way you are doing it should work, you are just using more code and Eloquent has some methods to help you attach relationships, so I would try something like this:
public function editPost($id)
{
$user = User::find($id);
// Create a new bulletin, passing the necesssary data
$bulletin = new Bulletin(Input::only(['type', 'title', 'bulletinEdit']));
// Attach the bulletin model to your user, Laravel should set the creator_id itself
$bulletin = $user->bulletin()->save($bulletin);
...
return Redirect::to('bulletin');
}
In your model, you'll have to:
class User extends Eloquent implements UserInterface, RemindableInterface {
protected $fillable = ['type', 'title', 'bulletinEdit'];
...
}
So Laravel doesn't give you a MassAssignmentException.