Cluttered Controllers in Laravel 5.1 - php

Question

Is there a better way of organizing or writing the below controller method in Laravel 5.1?
I want to keep my Controllers short and sweet. I am using a repository setup as i'm building quite a large application and I want to keep everything organised.
Please advise on the best way to organise the below code.
/**
* Show the form for creating a new resource.
*
* #return Response
*/
public function create(CreateTimesheetRequest $request)
{
$data = $request->only('user_id', 'template_id');
$data['submitted_by'] = Auth::user()->id;
$timesheetId = $this->timesheet->createTimesheet($data);
foreach($request->get('row') as $key => $row)
{
foreach($row as $field => $value)
{
$this->timesheet->saveTimesheetRows([
'timesheet_id' => $timesheetId,
'field_id' => $this->timesheetFields->where('name', $field)->first()->id,
'field_name' => $field,
'field_value' => $value,
'field_key' => $key
]);
}
}
return Redirect::back()->withMessage('The timesheet was successfully created.');
}

Answer 1

All I can suggest - move this:
$data = $request->only('user_id', 'template_id');
$data['submitted_by'] = Auth::user()->id;
... into yours request class. For example, into some data() method:
class CreateTimesheetRequest ... {
...
public function data() {
return array_merge(
$this->only('user_id', 'template_id'),
['submitted_by' => Auth::user()->id]
);
}
}
Also, $this->timesheet->saveTimesheetRows(array) looks more like $this->timesheet->saveTimesheetRow(array) for me - name intends to save multiple rows, but you feed that method only with one row per call.
Maybe, you can refactor that method to smth. like this:
function saveTimesheetRows($timesheetId, $key, $rows, $fieldIds) {
foreach($rows as $field => $value) {
$this->saveTimesheetRow([
'timesheet_id' => $timesheetId,
'field_id' => $fieldIds[$field],
'field_name' => $field,
'field_value' => $value,
'field_key' => $key
]);
}
}
function saveTimesheetRow(array $row) {
// old saveTimesheetRows implementation
}
Upd.
And another tip: use Eloquent's keyBy() method like so:
$keyIDs = $this->timesheetFields->whereIn('name', $fields)->get(["name", "id"])->keyBy("name");
So, finally:
public function create(CreateTimesheetRequest $request) {
$data = $request->data();
$timesheetId = $this->timesheet->createTimesheet($data);
foreach($request->get('row') as $key => $row) {
$this->timesheet->saveTimesheetRows(
$timesheetId,
$key,
$row,
$this->timesheetFields
->whereIn('name', array_keys($row))
->get(["name", "id"])
->keyBy("name") // probably, can be moved into $this->timesheetFields implementation
);
}
return Redirect::back()->withMessage('The timesheet was successfully created.');
}