# Validation

• Things worth noting
• Numbers and Currency
  • Phone Number
• Unique
  • Ignore a given ID or a specific record
  • Unique Based on Multiple Conditions
• Conditional Validation
  • Exclude
    • exclude_if and exclude_unless
  • Required
    • required_with and required_with_all
    • required_if and required_unless
• Validate Nested Properties (TBD)
• in

# Things worth noting

By default, Laravel includes the TrimStrings and ConvertEmptyStringsToNull middleware in your application's global middleware stack. Because of this, you will often need to mark your "optional" request fields as nullable if you do not want the validator to consider null values as invalid.

# Numbers and Currency

This regex pattern will match any string that starts with one or more digits and optionally ends with a dot followed by exactly two digits.

'price' => 'required|regex:/^\d+(\.\d{2})?$/',

• ^ : This asserts the start of a line. The pattern must match at the beginning of the line.
• \d+ : This matches one or more digits (0-9).
• (\.\d{2})? : This is a group that matches a dot (.) followed by exactly two digits. The question mark (?) after the group makes this group optional, meaning it can appear once or not at all.
• $ : This asserts the end of a line. The pattern must match at the end of the line.

# Phone Number

'phone_number' => 'required|string|regex:/^[0-9+\s]+$/i|min:10',

In this example, we're validating a phone number input called "phone_number" that must be required, a string, and match the regular expression pattern of "^[0-9+\s]+$", which allows only numbers, plus sign, and spaces. We're also setting a minimum length of 10 characters and a maximum length of 20 characters for the phone number.

# Unique

unique:table,column,except,idColumn

# Ignore a given ID or a specific record

'code' => 'required|min:3|unique:courses,code,' . $this->course->id,
'email' => 'required|string|email|max:255|unique:users,email,' . auth()->user()->id,

use Illuminate\Validation\Rule;

'code' => ['required', Rule::unique('courses')->ignore($this->course)],

# Unique Based on Multiple Conditions

The following validation rule is checking for uniqueness of the route_prefix value, but only if the is_category field is true. If is_category is false, the validation rule does nothing.

If is_category is true, the validation rule checks whether any other record in the pages table has a route_prefix value that matches the route_prefix value of the record being edited ($this->editing->route_prefix), and also has is_category set to true. If such a record exists, the validation rule will fail (because the route_prefix value must be unique for all is_category records with the same value).

This 'always false' condition is because the unique rule requires a valid WHERE clause to work, and in this case, when the is_category field is false, there is no need to apply any condition to the query.

'route_prefix' => [
    Rule::requiredIf($this->editing->is_category),
    Rule::unique('pages', 'route_prefix')
        ->where(function ($query) {
            if ($this->editing->is_category) {
                return $query->where('route_prefix', $this->editing->route_prefix);
            }
            return $query->whereRaw('1=0'); // always false condition
        })
        ->ignore($this->editing->id)
],

# Conditional Validation

# Exclude

# exclude_if and exclude_unless

'field' => 'exclude_if:anotherField,value|required',
'field' => 'exclude_unless:anotherField,value|required',

you can check multiple against values using comma separated values.

# Required

# required_with and required_with_all

'password' => 'required|confirmed|min:6',
'password_confirmation' => 'required_with:password',

# required_if and required_unless

'field' => 'required_if:anotherField,value,anotherValue',
'field' => 'required_unless:anotherField,value,anotherValue',

# Validate Nested Properties (TBD)

'blocks.*.title' => [
    'exclude_if:blocks.*.type,apple,banana', 'required'
],
// check nested values using dot notation
'field' => 'required_if:nested.anotherField,value,anotherValue',
'field' => 'required_unless:nested.anotherField,value,anotherValue',

# in

Is valid option for the in rule to use the keys method on a collection to get a comma separated list of keys.

'status' => 'required|in:active,inactive,pending',

// convert to comma separated list of keys
'status' => 'required|in:' . collect(Order::STATUSES)->keys()->implode(','),