Laravel - Form Input - Multiple select for a one to many relationship

I agree with user3158900, and I only differ slightly in the way I use it:

{{Form::label('sports', 'Sports')}}{{Form::select('sports',$aSports,null,array('multiple'=>'multiple','name'=>'sports[]'))}}

However, in my experience the 3rd parameter of the select is a string only, so for repopulating data for a multi-select I have had to do something like this:

<select multiple="multiple" name="sports[]" id="sports">@foreach($aSports as $aKey => $aSport)    @foreach($aItem->sports as $aItemKey => $aItemSport)        <option value="{{$aKey}}" @if($aKey == $aItemKey)selected="selected"@endif>{{$aSport}}</option>    @endforeach@endforeach</select>

@SamMonk your technique is great. But you can use laravel form helper to do so. I have a customer and dogs relationship.

On your controller

$dogs = Dog::lists('name', 'id');

On customer create view you can use.

{{ Form::label('dogs', 'Dogs') }}{{ Form::select('dogs[]', $dogs, null, ['id' => 'dogs', 'multiple' => 'multiple']) }}

Third parameter accepts a list of array a well. If you define a relationship on your model you can do this:

{{ Form::label('dogs', 'Dogs') }}{{ Form::select('dogs[]', $dogs, $customer->dogs->lists('id'), ['id' => 'dogs', 'multiple' => 'multiple']) }}

Update For Laravel 5.1

The lists method now returns a Collection.Upgrading To 5.1.0

{!! Form::label('dogs', 'Dogs') !!}{!! Form::select('dogs[]', $dogs, $customer->dogs->lists('id')->all(), ['id' => 'dogs', 'multiple' => 'multiple']) !!}

Laravel 4.2

@SamMonk gave the best alternative, I followed his example and build the final piece of code

<select class="chosen-select" multiple="multiple" name="places[]" id="places">    @foreach($places as $place)        <option value="{{$place->id}}" @foreach($job->places as $p) @if($place->id == $p->id)selected="selected"@endif @endforeach>{{$place->name}}</option>    @endforeach</select>

In my project I'm going to have many table relationships like this so I wrote an extension to keep it clean. To load it, put it in some configuration file like "app/start/global.php". I've created a file "macros.php" under "app/" directory and included it in the EOF of global.php

// app/start/global.phprequire app_path().'/macros.php';// macros.phpForm::macro("chosen", function($name, $defaults = array(), $selected = array(), $options = array()){    // For empty Input::old($name) session, $selected is an empty string    if(!$selected) $selected = array();    $opts = array(        'class' => 'chosen-select',        'id' => $name,        'name' => $name . '[]',        'multiple' => true    );    $options = array_merge($opts, $options);    $attributes = HTML::attributes($options);    // need an empty array to send if all values are unselected    $ret = '<input type="hidden" name="' . HTML::entities($name) . '[]">';    $ret .= '<select ' . $attributes . '>';    foreach($defaults as $def) {        $ret .= '<option value="' . $def->id . '"';        foreach($selected as $p) {            // session array or passed stdClass obj            $current = @$p->id ? $p->id: $p;            if($def->id == $current) {                $ret .= ' selected="selected"';            }        }        $ret .= '>' . HTML::entities($def->name) . '</option>';    }    $ret .= '</select>';    return $ret;});

Usage

List without pre-selected items (create view)

{{ Form::chosen('places', $places, Input::old('places')) }}

Preselections (edit view)

{{ Form::chosen('places', $places, $job->places) }}

Complete usage

{{ Form::chosen('places', $places, $job->places, ['multiple': false, 'title': 'I\'m a selectbox', 'class': 'bootstrap_is_mainstream']) }}