Having common validation function across multiple controller in laravel - php

Question

Trying my hand on learning laravel.
I have a user form which post to this route
Route::post('users/add','usersController#store')->middleware('admin');
The store function in the usersController calls another function called validateForm which basically validates the input from the form ,like so
class usersController extends Controller
{
/*
*Store a user in database
*/
function store(){
$input=Request::all();
// create the validation rules ------------------------
$rules = array(
'name' => 'required', // just a normal required validation
'lastname' => 'required', // just a normal required validation
'email' => 'required|email|unique:users', // required and must be unique in the users table
'password' => 'required',
);
$validationResponse=$this->validateForm($input,$rules);
if($validationResponse=="passed"){
$user=new \App\User;
$user->name=$input['name'];
$user->email=$input['email'];
$user->lastname=$input['lastname'];
$user->password=\Hash::make($input['password']);
$user->userlevel=isset($input['isAdmin'])?1:0;
$user->save();
return redirect('users');
}
else{
return Redirect::to('users/create')
->withErrors($validationResponse)->withInput();
}
}
/*
*validate user form input
*/
function validateForm($input,$rules){
// do the validation ----------------------------------
// validate against the inputs from our form
$validator = Validator::make($input, $rules);
// check if the validator failed -----------------------
if ($validator->fails()) {
// get the error messages from the validator
$messages = $validator->messages();
return $messages;
}
else{
return 'passed';
}
}
}
Now this is fine for accesing from the userController, but what if I have another controller say projectsController and I want to access the same funtion i.e. validateForm
Where I should put this common function and how can I access it from any controller?

Answer 1

Laravel built in answer to this is Form Request
Just create a form request using php artisan make:request UserCheck, and put in your validation rules in the method rules
/**
* Get the validation rules that apply to the request.
*
* #return array
*/
public function rules() {
return [
'name' => 'required', // just a normal required validation
'lastname' => 'required', // just a normal required validation
'email' => 'required|email|unique:users', // required and must be unique in the users table
'password' => 'required',
]; }
And call it
/*
* Store a user in database
*/
public function store(UserCheck $request)
{
// The incoming request is valid...
}