How to deal with similar validation rules in Laravel? - php

Question

I have not so much practical experience with Laravel yet and I wondered what is the best way to deal with similar validation logic and where to put it.
Let's say I have an API resource Controller for Products with a store and an update method like so:
public function store(Request $request)
{
$request->validate([
'name' => 'required|string|max:100',
'description' => 'nullable|string|max:1000',
'price' =>'required|decimal:0,2|lt:1000'
]);
return Product::create($request->all());
}
public function update(Request $request, Product $product)
{
$request->validate([
'name' => 'string|max:100',
'description' => 'nullable|string|max:1000',
'price' =>'decimal:0,2|lt:1000'
]);
return Product::update($request->all());
}
The only difference between the validation in store and update is that store adds the 'required' rule for 'name' and 'price'. My question is, if I can encapsulate both validations in one Form Request, or how can I avoid code duplication without adding unnecessary code?
With my understanding of Form Requests I would probably create two Form Request classes, StoreProductRequest and UpdateProductRequest, and maybe another helper class that defines the core validation rules. Then each Form request could call for example ProductHelper::getBaseValidationRules() and merge that with their extra requirements. Somehow I find that a bit overkill.

Answer 1

you can create a request for your validations and use them in your controllers
for example
php artisan make:request YOUR_REQUEST_NAME
then inside your request you can add your validations like this
public function rules()
{
return [
'name' => 'required|string|max:100',
'description' => 'nullable|string|max:1000',
'price' => 'required|decimal:0,2|lt:1000'
];
}
/**
* Determine if the user is authorized to make this request.
*
* #return bool
*/
public function authorize()
{
return true;
}
and in your method you can call it like this
public function update(YOUR_REQUEST_NAME $request, Product $product)
{
return Product::update($request->all());
}
for more information you can read this
https://laravel.com/docs/5.0/validation#form-request-validation
in case you want condition in the rules please check this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epMaClBOlw0&ab_channel=CodeWithDary

Answer 2

Okay based on the suggestions, I came up with the following solution:
I created a Form Request named ProductRequest and implemented the rules method as follows:
public function rules()
{
$rules = [
'name' => ['string', 'max:100'],
'description' => ['nullable', 'string', 'max:1000'],
'price' => ['decimal:0,2', 'lt:1000'],
];
// If the user wants to create a new Instance some fields are mandatory.
if ($this->method() === 'POST') {
$rules['name'][] = 'required';
$rules['price'][] = 'required';
}
return $rules;
}
This is fine for me. Although in a bigger project I probably would create two Form Requests, StoreProductRequest and UpdateProductRequest. They would share and update a base set of rules as I described in the question.