Eloquent firstOrCreate documentation or usage - laravel

Question

I'm attempting to seek a table to see if a column named "name" exists if so return the value and if not create that row with a null value i saw firstOrCreate but i cannot figure out how to use it for the life of me.
This is what i currently have, can someone lend a hand?
class Settings extends Eloquent
{
protected $table = 'settings';
protected $primaryKey = 'name';
public static function get($settingName)
{
return self::firstOrCreate(array('name' => $settingName));
// return self::select(array('value'))->where('name', '=', $settingName)->first()->value;
}
}

Answer 1

The create() method does mass assignment and this is a big security issue, so Laravel has a protection against it. Internally it has guarded = ['*'], so all your columns will be protected against mass assignment. You have some options:
Set the fillable columns of your model:
class User extends Eloquent {
protected $fillable = array('first_name', 'last_name', 'email');
}
Or set only the ones you want to keep guarded:
class User extends Eloquent {
protected $guarded = array('password');
}
You may, at your own risk also do:
class User extends Eloquent {
protected $guarded = array();
}
And everything will be unguarded.
Take a look a the docs: http://laravel.com/docs/eloquent#mass-assignment
You also could use your Facade to call it:
class Settings extends Eloquent
{
protected $table = 'settings';
protected $primaryKey = 'name';
public static function get($settingName)
{
return Settings::firstOrCreate(array('name' => $settingName));
}
}