Dynamically create new columns in laravel - mysql

Question

I'm trying to allow admins to create new columns in a sql table from a form that has a fields for the column title, column type and target table. I'm sure I'm not doing this in the most elegant way possible but I'm trying to use the framework rather than have everyone beat me up for directly querying the database. I've created the following controller that almost completely works, however, when I try to use $new_column rather a hard coded string I get an undefined variable exception.
//Capture variables from view
$type = Input::get('type');
$table_name = Input::get('table');
$proposed_name = Input::get('name');
//Convert proposed name into useable column name
$new_column = strtolower(str_replace(' ', '_', (preg_replace('/[^a-zA-Z0-9_ -%][().][\/]/s', '', $proposed_name))));
if($type == 'string')
{Schema::table($table_name, function($table){$table->string($new_column);});}
elseif($type == 'date')
{Schema::table($table_name, function($table){$table->date($new_column);});}
...
//Flash Success
$message = 'Variable "' . $proposed_name . '"" has been successfully created.';
Session::flash('flash_success', $message);
return Redirect::action('VariableManagerController#getIndex');
Is there a way to make this work through the Larval framework or should I just do a raw query to the database?
For the record this will be utilizing a try catch block but that would only further confuse the code above.

Answer 1

$alldata=Input::all();
$table_name = Input::get('table');
Schema::table($table_name, function($table) use ($alldata)
{
$colname=$alldata['name'];
$coltype=$alldata['type'];
$table->$coltype($colname);});
}