Form Requests & Validation Rules

Validation Basics

use Illuminate\Http\Request;

public function store(Request $request): RedirectResponse
{
    $validated = $request->validate([
        "title" => ["required", "string", "max:255"],
        "email" => ["required", "email", "unique:users,email"],
        "password" => ["required", "string", "min:8", "confirmed"],
        "terms" => ["accepted"],
    ]);

    $user = User::create($validated);
    return redirect()->route("users.show", $user);
}

Form Request Classes

namespace App\Http\Requests;

use Illuminate\Foundation\Http\FormRequest;

class StorePostRequest extends FormRequest
{
    public function authorize(): bool
    {
        return $this->user()->can("create", Post::class);
    }

    public function rules(): array
    {
        return [
            "title" => ["required", "string", "max:255"],
            "body" => ["required", "string", "min:10"],
            "category_id" => ["required", "exists:categories,id"],
            "tags" => ["sometimes", "array"],
            "tags.*" => ["exists:tags,id"],
        ];
    }

    public function messages(): array
    {
        return [
            "title.required" => "A post title is required.",
            "body.min" => "The body must be at least :min characters.",
        ];
    }
}

Custom Validation Rules

// Using closures
$rules = [
    "slug" => ["required", function (string $attribute, mixed $value, Closure $fail) {
        if (str_contains($value, " ")) {
            $fail("The :attribute must not contain spaces.");
        }
    }],
];