Updating Multiple Models in a single Form, how to improve?

Like any other form you can name the fields in such a way that arrays are sent :

<textarea name="students[{{ $student->id }}][description]"></textarea>

Then in your controller :

$students = $request->get('students');

foreach($students as $id => $student)
{
  // Logic here with $id, $student['description'], etc...
}

Set the field name to description[{{ $student->id }}] and the same for each of your other fields.

You can then access description as an array, keyed on the student's id.

Edit: Damn @pmall... need to stop posting from my phone lol

Wow @pmall, thanks for the tip, this is something I didn't know about previously.

Then to the question of validation.

Because the validation are repeated for each model, is there a elegant way to duplicate the validations in the models/controller and display it on frontend?

Update: I'm using Laravel 4.2 with laravel validating package.

We use dependency injection to make sure that the right request object is used. The create function will automatically use the rules in the StudentRequest class

StudentController.php

public function store(StudentRequest $request) 
{
    Student::create($request->all());
}

Now we need to create the students request class (You can generate it with php artisan make:request StudentRequest)

StudentRequest.php

<?php namespace App\Http\Requests;

use App\Http\Requests\Request;

class StudentRequest extends Request {

    /**
     * Determine if the user is authorized to make this request.
     *
     * @return bool
     */
    public function authorize()
    {
        return true; // The user is always permitted to do this, so we perform no action here
    }

    /**
     * Get the validation rules that apply to the student request.
     *
     * @return array
     */
    public function rules()
    {
        return [
            'name' => 'required|min:3',
            'description' => 'required'
        ];
    }

}

Hi @blackbird, I'm using Laravel 4.2 with Laravel validating package (model validation)

@blackbird he is on L4

@polarcubs no other solution than constructing an array of rules somehow, according to the number of students in the request input. Then use dot notation :

$students = Request::get('students');

$rules = [];

for($i = 0; $i < count($students); $i++)
{
  $rules['students.' . $i . '.description'] = '...';
}

Take a look at this video for your validation

https://laracasts.com/lessons/form-validation-simplified

Hi @pmall, I noticed you use $request->get('students') instead of Input::get('students').

Is there any differences?

$request->get('students') is more L5ich :D