New to Laravel - Correct way of working

Hi,

Bit of background - I have a PHP project, it works ok at the moment. One problem is that its messy, no structure whatsoever. So I decided to try out Laravel, which I am loving by the way, just not use to this whole MVC thing. So to start with, I basically have the following two tables. Your alt text here

Using Migrations, I have now created these tables in Laravel. booking_class is linked to seat_hunter via the seat_hunter_id.

I have created a Model for each table which basically look like so

class SeatHunter extends Eloquent
{
    protected $table  = "seat_hunter";

    public function getSearchCommand(){
        return $this->search_command;
    }

    public function getFlightNumber(){
        return $this->flight_number;
    }

    public function getAirlineIata(){
        return $this->airline_iata;
    }

    public function isDeleted(){
        return $this->is_deleted;
    }

    public function getAlertStatus(){
        return $this->alert_status;
    }

    public function bookingClass() {
        return $this->hasMany('booking_class');
    }
}

class BookingClass extends Eloquent
{
    protected $table  = "booking_class";

    public function getClassLetter(){
        return $this->class_letter;
    }

    public function getSeatHunterId(){
        return $this->seathunter_id;
    }

    public function seatHunter() {
        return $this->belongsTo('seat_hunter');
    }
}

I also have a view which has a form on it, which should take the user input and store it into these tables. My legacy code done it like to

case "add_new_alert":

        // ==== collect data ====
        $na_command = $_POST['na_command'];
        $na_flight_number = strtoupper($_POST['na_flight_number']);
        $na_booking_class = $_POST['na_booking_class'];

        preg_match_all('/(\d)|(\w)/', $na_flight_number, $matches);
        $na_flight_number = implode($matches[1]);
        $na_carrier = implode($matches[2]);
        // ==== validate ====
        $error = array();

        if (!$na_command) {
            $error[] = "Please enter the Worldspan Command";
        }
        if (!$na_carrier) {
            $error[] = "Please enter the carrier e.g BA";
        }
        if (!$na_flight_number) {
            $error[] = "Please enter the flight number";
        }
        if (!$na_booking_class) {
            $error[] = "Please select at least one booking class";
        }

        if (count($error)) {
            echo "There were errors adding the alert.\n\n";
            foreach ($error as $item) {
                echo $item . "\n";
            }
            die();
        }

        // ==== insert ====

        // Execute the main query
        $sql = "
        INSERT INTO `seat_hunter` (
            `search_command`,
            `flight_number`,
            `airline_iata`
        ) VALUES (
            '%s', '%s', '%s'
        )";
        $sql = sprintf($sql,
            mysql_real_escape_string($na_command),
            mysql_real_escape_string($na_flight_number),
            mysql_real_escape_string($na_carrier)
        );
        $result = mysql_query($sql);
        if (!$result) {
            die("Failed to execute main query: " . mysql_error());
        }

        // Fetch the ID of the new row.
        $shID = mysql_insert_id();

        // Insert a row for each chosen class.
        foreach ($na_booking_class as $classLetter) {
            $sql = "INSERT INTO `seat_hunter_booking_class`(`seat_hunter_id`, `class_letter`)
            VALUES (%d, '%s')";
            $sql = sprintf($sql, $shID, $classLetter);
            if (!mysql_query($sql)) {
                trigger_error("Failed to insert '{$classLetter}' for #{$shID}: " . mysql_error(), E_USER_WARNING);
            }
        }

        // ==== handle response ====

        echo "Success:";

        break;

How would I translate this in Laravel though, and where would it be placed? The form in my view is not a Laravel form, just a standard one written by me.

Any advice appreciated.

Thanks

Both. With migrations you create the database tables (with the necessary foreigns keys). In the model you have to add the relationships if you want to access them.

Example: In my migrations:

Schema::create('regions', function($table) {
	$table->increments('id');
	$table->integer('languageId')->unsigned();
	$table->foreign('languageId')->references('id')->on('languages');
	$table->integer('countryId')->unsigned();
	$table->foreign('countryId')->references('id')->on('countries');
	$table->integer('sequence')->unsigned();
});

In my model:

<?php namespace Models;

class Region extends \Entity {

    protected $table = 'regions';
    public $timestamps = false;
	
    public function language()
    {
        return $this->belongsTo('\Models\Language', 'languageId');
    }
	
    public function country()
    {
        return $this->belongsTo('\Models\Country', 'countryId');
    }
}

Moderators