Nesting Models Relations In Forms - Laravel - php

Question

In laravel, is there some way of nesting related resources in a form?
Say I have this:
class Person extends Eloquent {
public function addresses() {
return $this->hasMany("Address");
}
}
class Address extends Eloquent {
public function person() {
return $this->belongsTo("Person");
}
}
and I want a Person form to collect information about that Person's Addresses. Does laravel facilitate this in a way that is equivalent to Rails' accepts_nested_attributes_for :address and fields_for :address?
I'd just like something simple where I can include the Address fields with the results of the Person form, since the Address doesn't really exist apart from the Person. Does this make sense?
== EDIT ==
This is hypothetical code
What I'm looking for is something that would resemble this:
{{ Form::model(new Person, array("action" => "admin\PersonController#store", "method" => "POST")) }}
{{ Form::text("name", array(...)) // <input name='person[name]' ... /> }}
{{ Form::email("email", array(...)) // <input name='person[email]' ... /> }}
{{ Form::fields_for("addresses"/* Would be name of relation */) }}
{{ Form::text("street_address") // <input name='person[addresses][][street_address]' ... /> }}
{{ Form::close_fields() }}
{{ Form::close() }}

Answer 1

You are on the right track with the input names.
Form
// Form open, Person fields, etc...
<h2>Addresses</h2>
#foreach ($addresses as $address)
<fieldset>
{{ Input::text('addresses['.$address->id.'][address_1]', $address->address_1) }}
{{ Input::text('addresses['.$address->id.'][address_1]', $address->address_2) }}
{{ Input::text('addresses['.$address->id.'][city]', $address->city) }}
{{ Input::text('addresses['.$address->id.'][state]', $address->state) }}
{{ Input::text('addresses['.$address->id.'][zip]', $address->zip) }}
</fieldset>
#endforeach
// Form Close
If you want to add addresses you'll need to generate some random key to use instead of the address id. This will keep the fields grouped.
Controller Logic
This is how I would handle input, using 'fillable' to filter the data going into the models.
// Get the Person model, fill, save, etc...
$addressIds = array();
foreach (Input::get('addresses', array()) as $id => $addressData)
{
$address = Address::find($id) ?: new Address;
$address->fill($addressData);
$address->save();
$addressIds[] = $address->id;
}
$changes = $person->addresses()->sync($addressIds);
// Delete the unused addresses
foreach ($changes['detached'] as $detachedAddressId)
{
$address = Address::find($detachedAddressId);
if (!empty($address)) $address->delete();
}

Answer 2

Now you can use the package "modelform" to create a form for various models or even a set of forms for relations.
https://github.com/andersondanilo/modelform

Answer 3

You should manage all of this from your controller. Collect the data from the form and use them as you please:
// Controller Code
$person = new Person(array(
'field_1' => Input::get('field_1'),
'field_2' => Input::get('field_2'),
.............
));
$person->save();
$address = new Address(array(
'field_x' => Input::get('field_x'),
'field_y' => Input::get('field_y'),
.............
));
$person->addresses()->save($address);
See it in the docs