Laravel 5 custom form validation - php

Question

I come from a codeigniter background(I know a bit overdue) and I have small issue in creating custom form validation rules in Laravel 5.2.
Many of the tutorials I checked suggested doing such in the route file and setting up a request file etc, but I still am confused.
My need is very simple.
I have product categories that have sub categories.
For each product category, there needs to have a default sub category.
So when creating sub categories i have a tick asking if that sub category is the default category.
I need the form validator to trigger false during form validation in the sub category creation process if an already created sub category has been selected as the default sub category for that category.
Below is the part of my code that contains the form validation section.
$attributeNames = array(
'category_id' => 'UOM Category Name',
'sub_category_name' => 'Sub Category Name',
'is_default' => 'Default'
);
$validator = Validator::make($request->all(), [
'category_id' => 'required',
'sub_category_name' => 'required|unique:sub_categories,sub_category_name',
'is_default' => 'required', //POSSIBLE TRIGGER GOES HERE. In CI the a custom function name went here
]);
$validator->setAttributeNames($attributeNames);
if ($validator->fails()) {
$response = new Response();
return $response->setStatusCode(400, $validator->errors());
} else {
//proceed with store
}
Sorry about bad english.
Also, I have seen that form validation is done on a FormRequest. Is this best practice?

Answer 1

Yes, form requests exist for this. You can create a new FormRequest with the command php artisan make:request CreateSubCategoryRequest, then add your rules:
/**
* Get the validation rules that apply to the request.
*
* #return array
*/
public function rules()
{
return [
'category_id' => 'required|exists:categories,id', // If you're making sure the parent category ID exists
'sub_category_name' => 'required|unique:sub_categories,sub_category_name',
'is_default' => 'required|boolean'
];
}
For your default subcategory validation, I believe what you're asking is how you can validate if the parent category already has a default subcategory (only allowing 1 default subcategory per main category). In that case, you should assign a default_subcategory_id field to your main category record instead of on each subcategory itself. Then add a relationship to the main category model for the default subcategory and check if it's null.

Answer 2

As always the laravel docs are your best friend https://laravel.com/docs/5.2/validation#validation-quickstart
You have multiple options on how to and where to validate your request. Best practice depends on your usecase.
However, for me mostly creating a request type for a specfific entity was the best thing. You can use the artisan command to create a new reqest
php artisan make:request CategoryRequest
// or whatever your entity is called
You will find the file in app/Http/Requests.
You have a rules function where you can just paste your rules you need to validate
return [
'category' => 'required|min:5'
];
To create a custom rule you can put this in your AppServiceProvider.php
public function boot()
{
// custom rule
Validator::extend('foo', function($attribute, $value, $parameters, $validator) {
return $value == 'foo';
});
}
Custom Validation Rules: https://laravel.com/docs/5.2/validation#custom-validation-rules