Using the Generators package to set up an app

Generators is a popular Laravel package that automates quite a bit of file creation. In addition to controllers and models, it can also generate views, migrations, seeds, and more, all through a command-line interface.

Getting ready

For this recipe, we'll be using the Laravel 4 Generators package maintained by Jeffrey Way that was installed in the Downloading and installing packages recipe. We'll also need a properly configured MySQL database.

How to do it…

Follow these steps for this recipe:

1. Open the command line in the root of our app and, using the generator, create a scaffold for our cities as follows:

   php artisan generate:scaffold cities --fields="city:string"
   

2. In the command line, create a scaffold for our superheroes as follows:

   php artisan generate:scaffold superheroes --fields="name:string, city_id:integer:unsigned"
   

3. In our project, look in the app/database/seeds directory and find a file named CitiesTableSeeder.php. Open it and add some...