How to Validate and Sanitize Form Checkbox Array? - php

Question

I'm using OctoberCMS based on Laravel and Twig.
I have a form with checkboxes queued[]. They are submitted and deleted with Laravel using a loop.
It all works but how can I validate and sanitize the array?
Validate requires an asterisk *? '*' => Input::get('queued')?
Sanitize, I get the error trim() expects parameter 1 to be string, array given.
Form
<form method="POST" action="{{ url_current() }}">
<input type="hidden" name="_handler" value="onDelete" />
<input type="checkbox" name="queued[]" value="item1" />
<input type="checkbox" name="queued[]" value="item2" />
<input type="checkbox" name="queued[]" value="item3" />
<button type="submit" name="submit" value="delete">Delete Checked</button>
</form>
PHP
public function onDelete() {
# Validator
$validator = Validator::make(
[
'_handler' => Input::get('_handler'),
'queued' => Input::get('queued'),
'submit' => Input::get('submit')
]
);
if ($validator->fails()) {
return Redirect::back()->withErrors($validator);
exit();
}
# Sanitize
function sanitize_input($data) {
$data = trim($data);
$data = stripslashes($data);
$data = strip_tags($data);
$data = htmlspecialchars($data);
return $data;
}
# Delete Checked
$checkboxes = '';
$checkboxes = isset($_POST['queued']) ? $_POST['queued'] : array();
// Sanitize
$checkboxes = $this->sanitize_input($checkboxes);
foreach($checkboxes as $file) {
File::delete("$file");
}
}

Answer 1

You can write your own custom validation rules.
You can define a new rule in the plugins boot() method like this:
Validator::extend('myCustomRule', function($attribute, $value, $parameters) {
# check if the $value is in valid
# return true if it is and return false if it is not valid
return true;
});
You can foreach the array and then check the values. Depends on you validation rules, you might not need to sanitize after that.
And then you can use the custom rule by the name you supplied:
$validator = Validator::make(input(), [
'queued' => 'myCustomRule',
]
);