How to format the validation error messages in Laravel 5? - php

Question

I am building a RESTful API with Laravel 5.1 - When a post request is made, I validate the input, if the input is not valid, I throw an exception.
Current Response Sample:
{
"message": "{\"email\":[\"The email field is required.\"]}",
"status_code": 400
}
How to make my response look like this:
{
"message": {
"email": "The email field is required."
},
"status_code": 400
}
Here's how I throw the exception:
$validator = Validator::make($this->request->all(), $this->rules());
if ($validator->fails()) {
throw new ValidationFailedException($validator->errors());
}

Answer 1

I think the best way to validate the form in laravel is using Form Request Validation .You can overwrite the response method in App\Http\Request.php class.
Request.php
namespace App\Http\Requests;
Illuminate\Foundation\Http\FormRequest;
abstract class Request extends FormRequest
{
public function response(array $errors)
{
return $this->respond([
'status_code' => 400 ,
'message' => array_map(function($errors){
foreach($errors as $key=>$value){
return $value;
}
},$errors)
]);
}
/**
* Return the response
*/
public function respond($data , $headers=[] ){
return \Response::json($data);
}
}

Answer 2

You can try this:
$messages = [
'email.required' => 'The :attribute field is required.',
];
$validator = Validator::make($input, $rules, $messages);

Answer 3

Here is a class I use:
<?php
namespace App;
class Hack
{
public static function provokeValidationException($field_messages){
$rules = [];
$messages = [];
foreach($field_messages as $field=>$message){
$rules[$field] = 'required';
$messages[$field. '.required'] = $message;
}
$validator = \Validator::make([], $rules, $messages);
if ($validator->fails()) {
throw new \Illuminate\Validation\ValidationException($validator);
}
}
}
Then any time I need to show custom errors, I do:
\App\Hack::provokeValidationException(array(
'fieldname'=>'message to display',
'fieldname2'=>'message2 to display',
));

Answer 4

I had this same issue and I resolved it by decoding my the $validator->errors() response
return (400, json_decode($exception->getMessage()));