Laravel4 - Saving a model with multiple relationships/foreign keys - laravel

Question

I've tried to understand a process of saving a model with multiple relationships but I still can't figure out how to do it "kosher" way.
To begin with - I have an Event model that belongs to a category (Eventcat) and a Location:
// Event.php
class Event extends Eloquent {
protected $table = 'events';
public function location()
{
return $this->belongsTo('Location');
}
public function eventcat()
{
return $this->belongsTo('Eventcat');
}
public function users()
{
return $this->belongsToMany('User');
}
}
// Location.php
class Location extends Eloquent
{
protected $table = 'locations';
public function events()
{
return $this->hasMany('Event');
}
}
// Eventcat.php
class Eventcat extends Eloquent
{
protected $table = 'eventcats';
public function events()
{
return $this->hasMany('Event');
}
}
I've seeded the database with a few categories and locations and now I trying to get events saving work. I thought that the $event->eventcat()->associate( $eventcat ) would work but I got a Call to undefined method eventcat() error.
public function postCreateEvent() {
$event = new Event();
$eventcat = Eventcat::find( Input::get('event-create-eventcat[]') );
$location = Location::find( Input::get('event-create-location[]') );
$event->title = Input::get('event-create-title');
$event->description = Input::get('event-create-description');
$event->price = Input::get('event-create-price');
$event->start_date = Input::get('event-create-start_date');
$event->end_date = Input::get('event-create-end_date');
$event->eventcat()->associate( $eventcat );
$event->location()->associate( $location );
$event->save();
}
I've read the documentation, API and a few threads here but I still can't figure out the best way to deal with this.
Thanks for replies!

Answer 1

I would actually bet that you have a conflict in your class name. Laravel contains an Event class and I wonder if that isn't what's being called in your code. As a quick test, you could rename your class FooEvent and see if it works.
The best solution is probably namespacing your model (see http://chrishayes.ca/blog/code/laravel-4-methods-staying-organized for a quick intro) so that your model can still be called Event without conflicting with the builtin class.