Creating and Update Laravel Eloquent

Here's a full example of what "lu cip" was talking about:

$user = User::firstOrNew(array('name' => Input::get('name')));$user->foo = Input::get('foo');$user->save();

Below is the updated link of the docs which is on the latest version of Laravel

Docs here: Updated link

Updated: Aug 27 2014 - [updateOrCreate Built into core...]

Just in case people are still coming across this... I found out a few weeks after writing this, that this is in fact part of Laravel's Eloquent's core...

Digging into Eloquent’s equivalent method(s). You can see here:

https://github.com/laravel/framework/blob/4.2/src/Illuminate/Database/Eloquent/Model.php#L553

on :570 and :553

    /**     * Create or update a record matching the attributes, and fill it with values.     *     * @param  array  $attributes     * @param  array  $values     * @return static     */    public static function updateOrCreate(array $attributes, array $values = array())    {        $instance = static::firstOrNew($attributes);        $instance->fill($values)->save();        return $instance;    }

Old Answer Below

I am wondering if there is any built in L4 functionality for doing this in some way such as:

$row = DB::table('table')->where('id', '=', $id)->first();// Fancy field => data assignments here$row->save();

I did create this method a few weeks back...

// Within a Model extends Eloquentpublic static function createOrUpdate($formatted_array) {    $row = Model::find($formatted_array['id']);    if ($row === null) {        Model::create($formatted_array);        Session::flash('footer_message', "CREATED");    } else {        $row->update($formatted_array);        Session::flash('footer_message', "EXISITING");    }    $affected_row = Model::find($formatted_array['id']);    return $affected_row;}

I Hope that helps. I would love to see an alternative to this if anyone has one to share. @erikthedev_

2020 Update

As in Laravel >= 5.3, if someone is still curious how to do so in easy way it's possible by using: updateOrCreate().

For example for the asked question you can use something like:

$matchThese = ['shopId'=>$theID,'metadataKey'=>2001];ShopMeta::updateOrCreate($matchThese,['shopOwner'=>'New One']);

Above code will check the table represented by ShopMeta, which will be most likely shop_metas unless not defined otherwise in the model itself.

And it will try to find entry with

column shopId = $theID

and

column metadateKey = 2001

and if it finds then it will update column shopOwner of found row to New One.

If it finds more than one matching rows then it will update the very first row that means which has lowest primary id.

If not found at all then it will insert a new row with:

shopId = $theID,metadateKey = 2001 and shopOwner = New One

NoticeCheck your model for $fillable and make sure that you have every column name defined there which you want to insert or update and rest columns have either default value or its id column auto incremented one.

Otherwise it will throw error when executing above example:

Illuminate\Database\QueryException with message 'SQLSTATE[HY000]: General error: 1364 Field '...' doesn't have a default value (SQL: insert into `...` (`...`,.., `updated_at`, `created_at`) values (...,.., xxxx-xx-xx xx:xx:xx, xxxx-xx-xx xx:xx:xx))'

As there would be some field which will need value while inserting new row and it will not be possible, as either it's not defined in $fillable or it doesn't have a default value.

For more reference please see Laravel Documentation at:https://laravel.com/docs/5.3/eloquent

One example from there is:

// If there's a flight from Oakland to San Diego, set the price to $99.// If no matching model exists, create one.$flight = App\Flight::updateOrCreate(    ['departure' => 'Oakland', 'destination' => 'San Diego'],    ['price' => 99]);

which pretty much clears everything.

Query Builder Update

Someone has asked if it is possible using Query Builder in Laravel. Here is reference for Query Builder from Laravel docs.

Query Builder works exactly the same as Eloquent so anything which is true for Eloquent is true for Query Builder as well. So for this specific case, just use the same function with your query builder like so:

$matchThese = array('shopId'=>$theID,'metadataKey'=>2001);DB::table('shop_metas')::updateOrCreate($matchThese,['shopOwner'=>'New One']);

Of course, don't forget to add DB facade:

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\DB;

OR

use DB;