Submit Multiple Select Values to an Action in Laravel 4 - redirect

Question

I've been trying to figure out how to submit multiple multi-select values using a redirect or something similar to an index() method/action in my resource controller in Laravel 4.
I've made several attempts to achieve this but have yet to work out how to do it.
I initially had it submitting to a query string, which worked to a certain extent but as soon as you selected more than 1 value in a single multi-select box, it wouldn't work, as it simply chose to use the last value.
This is the form in my view, with several multi-select boxes. http://paste.laravel.com/s1n
At the moment it's posting to an action/method in my EventsController called postSearch(). http://paste.laravel.com/s1p This method then redirects to my index() method and is supposed to take with it a $search_data variable to then be used for selecting results from an Eloquent model using http://paste.laravel.com/s1q
Now these methos are a bit of a mess at the moment, as I have been trying several things to get this working,
If anyone can offer any guidance on this I would really appreciate it. Thanks.

Answer 1

OK, so I've figured out how to do this. It may not be the best or most elegant solution but it works and I can refactor it later on.
First in my view, is the form.
{{ Form::open(array('action' => 'EventsController#postSearch', 'method' => 'POST', 'class' => 'view-only pull-left form-inline')) }}
{{ Form::label('courses', 'Course', array('class' => 'label')) }}
{{ Form::select('courses[]', $courses, '', array('class' => 'input-medium field', 'multiple' => 'multiple')) }}
{{ Form::label('suppliers', 'Supplier', array('class' => 'label')) }}
{{ Form::select('suppliers[]', $suppliers, '', array('class' => 'input-medium field', 'multiple' => 'multiple')) }}
{{ Form::label('locations', 'Location', array('class' => 'label')) }}
{{ Form::select('locations[]', $locations, '', array('class' => 'input-medium field', 'multiple' => 'multiple')) }}
{{ Form::label('venues', 'Venue', array('class' => 'label')) }}
{{ Form::select('venues[]', $venues, '', array('class' => 'input-medium field', 'multiple' => 'multiple')) }}
{{ Form::label('event_statuses', 'Status', array('class' => 'label')) }}
{{ Form::select('event_statuses[]', $event_statuses, '', array('class' => 'input-medium field', 'multiple' => 'multiple')) }}
{{ Form::submit('Search', array('class' => 'btn btn-success')) }}
{{ Form::close() }}
And my refined postSearch method in my EventsController:
public static function postSearch()
{
$courses_value = Input::get('courses');
$suppliers_value = Input::get('suppliers');
$locations_value = Input::get('locations');
$venues_value = Input::get('venues');
$status_value = Input::get('event_statuses');
// $tutor_value = Input::get('tutors');
$search_data = array(
'courses_value' => $courses_value,
'suppliers_value' => $suppliers_value,
'locations_value' => $locations_value,
'venues_value' => $venues_value,
'status_value' => $status_value,
// 'tutor_value' => $tutor_value
);
return Redirect::to('events')->with($search_data);
}
Then my index method contains the following:
$courses_value = Session::get('courses_value');
$suppliers_value = Session::get('suppliers_value');
$locations_value = Session::get('locations_value');
$venues_value = Session::get('venues_value');
$status_value = Session::get('status_value');
// $tutor_value = Session::get('tutor_value');
if (is_null($courses_value)) {
$courses = Course::all();
$course_titles = array();
foreach ($courses as $course) {
$course_titles[] = $course->title;
}
$courses_value = $course_titles;
}
if (is_null($suppliers_value)) {
$suppliers = Supplier::all();
$supplier_names = array();
foreach ($suppliers as $supplier) {
$supplier_names[] = $supplier->name;
}
$suppliers_value = $supplier_names;
}
if (is_null($locations_value)) {
$locations = Location::all();
$location_cities = array();
foreach ($locations as $location) {
$location_cities[] = $location->city;
}
$locations_value = $location_cities;
}
if (is_null($venues_value)) {
$venues = Venue::all();
$venue_names = array();
foreach ($venues as $venue) {
$venue_names[] = $venue->name;
}
$venues_value = $venue_names;
}
if (is_null($status_value)) {
$event_statuses = EventStatus::all();
$statuses = array();
foreach ($event_statuses as $event_status) {
$statuses[] = $event_status->status;
}
$status_value = $statuses;
}
This is the bit that could probably do with refactoring. Anyway, now when I select my results using:
$events = Event::where('active', '=', 1)
->leftJoin('courses', 'courses.id', '=', 'events.course_id')
->leftJoin('suppliers', 'suppliers.id', '=', 'events.supplier_id')
->leftJoin('locations', 'locations.id', '=', 'events.location_id')
->leftJoin('venues', 'venues.id', '=', 'events.venue_id')
->leftJoin('event_types', 'event_types.id', '=', 'events.event_type_id')
->leftJoin('event_statuses', 'event_statuses.id', '=', 'events.event_status_id')
->leftJoin('tutors', 'tutors.id', '=', 'events.tutor_id')
->orderBy($order[0], $order[1])
->select(array('events.*', DB::raw('events.id as eid'), DB::raw('suppliers.name as sname'), DB::raw('locations.city as lcity'), DB::raw('venues.name as vname'), DB::raw('venues.city as vcity'), DB::raw('tutors.first_name as tfirst_name')))
->whereIn('courses.title', $courses_value)
->whereIn('suppliers.name', $suppliers_value)
->whereIn('locations.city', $locations_value)
->whereIn('venues.name', $venues_value)
->whereIn('event_statuses.status', $status_value)
// ->whereIn('tutors.first_name', $tutor_value)
->paginate($perPage);
I am now able to select single or multiple values in the multi-select boxes and the results show as expected, which is great.
There's probably a much better way of doing this, so if you guys know of one please let me know.
What would be nice is to store the submission data in a variable that is not retrieved from the session, so I can use pagination on the results and the user doesn't have to re-search if they refresh or move away from and back to the page.