How do insert data into pivot table with columns without models? - laravel-5.4

Question

I'm learning laravel pivot table and here's what I'm doing. I have a student and subject model with many to many relationship. In my pivot table i have included columns for test1, test2 and test3 so that i can use it to store the student's score for each subject. These are my models
class Student extends Model
{
protected $guarded = ['id'];
public function subjects()
{
return $this->belongsToMany(Subject::class);
}
}
class Subject extends Model
{
protected $guarded = ['id'];
public function students()
{
return $this->belongsToMany(Student::class);
}
}
This is my migration
public function up()
{
Schema::create('subjects', function (Blueprint $table) {
$table->increments('id');
$table->string('name')->unique();
$table->timestamps();
});
Schema::create('student_subject', function (Blueprint $table) {
$table->integer('student_id');
$table->integer('subject_id');
$table->primary(['student_id', 'subject_id']);
$table->integer('test1')->nullable();
$table->integer('test2')->nullable();
$table->integer('test3')->nullable();
});
}
This is where it all got complicated for me. When a student record is created, user is redirected to an enroll page where subjects are selected for the student.
This is my StudController#store
public function store(Request $request)
{
$student = Student::create(request()->all());
Session::flash('status', "New student's record was added successfully");
Session::put('firstname', request('firstname'));
Session::put('lastname', request('lastname'));
Session::put('student_id', $student->id);
Session::put('class', $student->class_admitted);
return redirect('/enroll');
}
This is the enroll form
<form class="form-horizontal" role="form" method="POST" action="/enroll">
{{ csrf_field() }}
<input type="" name="student_id" value="{{ Session::get('student_id')}}" hidden>
<div class="col-md-6 form-group subjectList">
<ul>
#foreach ($subjects as $subject)
<li><label class="checkbox-inline"><input type="checkbox" name="subject_id[]" value="{{ $subject->id }}"> {{ ucwords($subject->name) }}</label></li>
#endforeach
</ul>
</div>
<div class="form-group">
<div class="col-md-6 col-md-offset-4">
<button type="submit" class="btn btn-primary">
Enroll
</button>
</div>
</div>
</form>
And this is my EnrollController#store
public function store(Request $request)
{
//dd($request);
$student = request('student_id');
foreach ($request->input('subject_id') as $subject) {
$student->subjects()->attach($subjects);
}
}
I'm confused as to how I can do insert into the pivot table.

Answer 1

You can add an array in your attach() method, like this:
->attach($subjectId, ['test1' => 1, 'test2' => 2]);
The attach() method will create the entry in the pivot table, the additional attributes will be added.
You can also pass an array of subjects to attach(), like this:
->attach([1 => ['test1' => 1, 'test2' => 2], 2 => ['test1' => 3, 'test2' => 4]]);
And when you need to update the pivot data you can use sync().
As far as I can see now, you do not have anything in your form besides the subject, so I assume you want to update the pivot data later on.
Also, you might want to add some additional validation there on both the student and the subjects.
public function store(Request $request)
{
// making sure student exists
$student = Student::findOrFail(request('student_id'));
$subjectIds = Subject::whereIn('id', $request->input('subject_id', []))
->get()
->pluck('id')
->all();
$student->subjects()->attach($subjectIds);
// you can also use sync here, that way it will add new subjects, keep the ones that already exist (and are posted) and remove subjects not in post
// $student->subjects()->sync($subjectIds);
}