Laravel 4 : Passing data from database to view - php

Question

I wish to make a select box containing some categories of items. This select box should have the data from database.
so first i created my blade
admin.blade.php :
<h2>Add Category</h2>
{{ HTML::ul($errors->all(), array('class'=>'errors')) }}
{{ Form::open(array( 'url'=>'admin/category/add', $title="Admin Control Panel")) }}
<p>
{{ Form::label('Category Name:') }}
{{ Form::text('category_name', Input::old('category_name')) }}
</p>
<p>
{{ Form::select('parent_category', array('' => 'Select Category', '0 ' => 'Main Category',)) }}
{{ Form::label('Parent Category:') }}
</p>
<p>
{{ Form::submit('Submit', array('name' => 'save')) }}
</p>
{{ Form::close() }}
and then i created my controller:
class CategoryController extends BaseController
{
public function add()
{
$category_list = CategoryModel::select();
return View::make('admin')->with('category_list', $category_list);
}
i need to display this array in my select box. but i don't know how to do that. please suggest a proper way!
thanks!

Answer 1

return View::make('admin')->with('category_list', $category_list);
What this is saying is create a response and return it to the client. The response is going to be generated using the blade template admin, and we're going to pass the contents of the variable $category_list to the view which will be able to reference it internally as $category_list (the first string parameter to the with function).
Therefore, inside your view if you want to access your category list you can do this:
{{ $category_list->title }}
Assuming, of course, that $category_list here is a single model with an attribute title. If $category_list is a collection of models (or an array), you can just use foreach:
#foreach($category_list as $category)
{{ $category->title }}
#endforeach
If what you're doing is trying to build a select list based off of the entries in your database for a given model, you can simply do this:
{{ Form::select('category', CategoryModel::list('title', 'id')) }}
Of course, you can generate that array in your controller and pass it down as you are doing now, too.