Eloquent Create or Save [ $user = User::create ] vs [ $user = new User; $user->save(); ]

I'm new to Laravel, my company has chosen to use it for re-designing our current software and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. But I've come across my first issue, hopefully I'm just being a newbie and someone can point me in the right direction.

I have a registration form which once completed and validated, the RegistrationController will complete two insertions, one into two different tables in a MySQL database.

A. Insert Company into companies table


B. Insert a User into users table.

Inside the User table there is a company_id. And the relationship of the User Model belongsTo a Company. And the Company Model hasMany Users. **Because of this relationship, I have given company_id a default value of 0 in the User table of the database.

I insert the company first so that I can retrieve the company_id so when I want to insert the user I can assign them to the relevant company.

I have done this using the Eloquent Create method as shown below. I understand this method can be shortened but I have done it the long way just to see if I was doing something wrong.

    $company = Company::create([

        'name' => request()->companyName,

        'email' => request()->companyEmail,

        'telephone' => request()->companyTelephone,

        'address' => request()->companyAddress,

        'town' => request()->companyTown,

        'county' => request()->companyCounty,

        'postcode' => request()->companyPostcode

    ]);

This works absolutely fine. Then I wanted to use the same method for inserting my user.

    $user = User::create([

        'name' => request()->adminName, 

        'email' =>  request()->adminEmail, 

        'password' => encrypt( request()->adminPassword),

        'company_id' => $company->id

    ]);

This is where it goes wrong. I have dd($company->id) and got the correct value (1 in this case as it's the first entry). But when I look at the users table in the database; the company_id is gets set to 0. If I remove the default value of 0, then I get a MySQL constraint error.

So I swapped out 'company_id' = $company->id and replaced the second half of the expression with a Select query, no luck. I tried a raw query, no luck.

I finally got it working by changing from an Eloquent create to the method below.

    $user = new User;

    $user->name = request()->adminName;

    $user->email = request()->adminEmail;

    $user->password = encrypt(request()->adminPassword);

    $user->company_id = $company->id;

    $user->save();

Now, my question is; am I doing some thing wrong in the User::create method?

Or is it correct that the default overrides the parameter? And if so, is there a way I can override that value?

Complete code:

<?php

namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use App\User;
use App\Company;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\DB;

class RegistrationController extends Controller {

    public function create() {
        return view('forms.register');
    }

    public function store() {

        $this->validate(request(), [
            'companyName' => 'required',
            'companyEmail' => 'required|email|unique:companies,email',
            'companyTelephone' => 'required',
            'companyAddress' => 'required',
            'companyTown' => 'required',
            'companyCounty' => 'required',
            'companyPostcode' => 'required',
            'adminName' => 'required',
            'adminEmail' => 'required|email',
            'adminPassword' => 'required',
            'adminPasswordConfirm' => 'required',
        ]);

        $company = Company::create([
            'name' => request()->companyName,
            'email' => request()->companyEmail,
            'telephone' => request()->companyTelephone,
            'address' => request()->companyAddress,
            'town' => request()->companyTown,
            'county' => request()->companyCounty,
            'postcode' => request()->companyPostcode
        ]);

        $user = new User;
        $user->name = request()->adminName;
        $user->email = request()->adminEmail;
        $user->password = encrypt(request()->adminPassword);
        $user->company_id = $company->id;
        $user->save();


        /**$user = User::create([
            'name' => request()->adminName, 
            'email' =>  request()->adminEmail, 
            'password' => encrypt( request()->adminPassword),
            'company_id' => $company->id
        ]);**/

        auth()->login($user);
        return redirect()->home();
    }
}