Laravel 4 code organization - laravel-4

Question

I have some questions to Laravel 4 code organization. I am not the best "clean coder" and come from the Java world and sometimes my PHP / Laravel 4 code looks terrible. I post an example here from my controller:
public function postCreate()
{
$input = array(
'title' => Binput::json('title'),
'gender' => Binput::json('gender'),
'first' => Binput::json('first'),
'last' => Binput::json('last'),
'birthdate' => Binput::json('birthdate'),
'birthplace' => Binput::json('birthplace'),
'citizenship' => Binput::json('citizenship'),
'organizationId' => Binput::json('organizationId'),
'typeId' => Binput::json('typeId'),
'email' => Binput::json('email'),
'phone_private' => Binput::json('phone_private'),
'phone_mobile' => Binput::json('phone_mobile'),
'address_street' => Binput::json('address.street'),
'address_postcode' => Binput::json('address.postcode'),
'address_city' => Binput::json('address.city'),
'address_country' => Binput::json('address.country'),
'educations' => Binput::json('educations'),
'selectedLanguages' => Binput::json('selectedLanguages'),
'work' => Binput::json('work'),
);
$rules = array (
'gender' => 'required|max:1',
'first' => 'required|min:2',
'last' => 'required|min:2',
'birthdate' => 'required',
'organizationId' => 'required',
'typeId' => 'required',
'email' => 'required|email',
);
$v = Validator::make($input, $rules);
if ($v->fails() || empty($input['educations']))
{
$data = array("flash" => 'Firstname, Lastname, Birthdate, Email and at least 1 entry in Educations required.');
return Response::json($data, 500);
}
try {
DB::connection()->getPdo()->beginTransaction();
$member = new Member();
$member->title = $input['title'];
$member->gender = $input['gender'];
$member->first = $input['first'];
$member->last = $input['last'];
$member->birthdate = $input['birthdate'];
$member->birthplace = $input['birthplace'];
$member->citizenship = $input['citizenship'];
$work = new Work();
$work->working = $input['work']['working'];
if($input['work']['working'] == 1){
$work->branch = $input['work']['branch'];
$work->company = $input['work']['company'];
}
$work->save();
$member->work()->associate($work);
$member->save();
foreach($input['educations'] as $eduInput){
$edu = new Education();
$edu->degree = $eduInput['degree'];
if(!empty($eduInput['course'])){
$edu->course = $eduInput['course'];
}
$edu->term = $eduInput['term'];
$edu->completion = $eduInput['completion'];
if(!empty($eduInput['faculty'])){
try{
$faculty = Faculty::findOrFail($eduInput['faculty']['id']);
$edu->faculty()->associate($faculty);
}catch (\Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\ModelNotFoundException $e){
}
}
if($eduInput['institutionId'] == 0){
// University
try{
$university = University::findOrFail($eduInput['university']['id']);
$edu->university()->associate($university);
}catch (\Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\ModelNotFoundException $e){
}
}else{
// Freetext
$edu->institution = $eduInput['institution'];
}
$edu->save();
$member->educations()->save($edu);
}
foreach($input['selectedLanguages'] as $languageInput){
try{
$lang = Language::findOrFail($languageInput['id']);
$member->languages()->attach($lang);
}catch (\Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\ModelNotFoundException $e){
}
}
try{
$memberType = MemberType::findOrFail($input['typeId']);
$member->memberType()->associate($memberType);
}catch (\Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\ModelNotFoundException $e){
}
try{
$organization = Organization::findOrFail($input['organizationId']);
$member->organizations()->attach($organization);
}catch (\Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\ModelNotFoundException $e){
}
$email = new Email();
$email->email = $input['email'];
$email->primary = true;
$member->emails()->save($email);
// If input for phone is empty
$phone = new Phone();
$phone->phone = $input['phone_private'];
$phone->phoneType()->associate(PhoneType::find(PhoneType::PRIVATE_PHONE));
$member->phones()->save($phone);
$phone = new Phone();
$phone->phone = $input['phone_mobile'];
$phone->phoneType()->associate(PhoneType::find(PhoneType::MOBILE_PHONE));
$member->phones()->save($phone);
$address = new Address();
$address->street = $input['address_street'];
$address->postcode = $input['address_postcode'];
$address->city = $input['address_city'];
$address->country = $input['address_country'];
$address->member()->associate($member);
$address->save();
DB::connection()->getPdo()->commit();
}catch (\PDOException $e) {
DB::connection()->getPdo()->rollBack();
return Response::json("Error while writing to database.", 500);
}
$member->load('emails');
$data = array("flash" => 'Member created successfully.');
return Response::json($data, 200);
}
This is an example from my controller.
Is it normal to get all parameters in this way. It takes much of space.
Can I move my database transaction elsewhere and not storing in the controller ?
In general where to store the code that manages logic ? In the controller ? In the
model ?

Answer 1

Your controller actions are just a sort of middleware in the sense that in there you should not put any of your business logic. a few pointers I can provide:
you can get all the json input with Input::json()->all() which returns an array so you can operate it.
Validation rules are another responsibility so it should be abstracted in another class that you call from the controller, it also may be well suited in your models(or entities).
To help you understand how can you use another class inside your controllers you should look for dependency injection in the laravel docs.
if you can get access to this book https://leanpub.com/laravel by Laravel's creator it will help your understanding of code organization and class responsibilities even outside laravel