Laravel 4 Unique Validation Rules Not Working - php

Question

need help updating a unique rule in my validation rules. I have a abstract validator that will validate a rules before storing into my database and in the rules array I set the email to be unique when creating or registering a user but when updating the user the enique email should not validate if the email is owned by the user.
abstract class Validator
abstract class Validator {
protected $errors;
protected $attributes;
public function __construct($attributes = null)
{
$this->attributes = $attributes ?: \Input::all();
}
public function passes()
{
$validation = \Validator::make($this->attributes, $this->rules());
if ($validation->passes()) return true;
$this->errors = $validation->messages();
return false;
}
public function getErrors()
{
return $this->errors;
}
}
Validation Rules(UserRule.php)
use MyCustomValidatorNamespaceHere....
class UserRules extends Validator
public function rules()
{
return [
'email' => 'required|email|unique:users,email,id',
...
];
}
and in my UserController I injected the UserRule in the constractor. (UserRule $userRule). Here is the code in the update method.
public function update($id)
{
$if ($this->userRule->passes())
{
$this->user->find($id)->update(Input::all());
return .........
}
}
But the validation always fail and displaying the error that the email is already taken. Please help guys.

Answer 1

The problem is your rule. When you update, you need to use unique that doesn't check record you update. So you should have:
unique:users,email,id
but for example:
unique:users,email,10
if you edit record with id 10.
What you could do is to define this rule:
'email' => 'required|email|unique:users,email,{id}',
and your passes method:
public function passes($id = null)
{
$rules = $this->rules();
$rules['email'] = str_replace('{id}', $id, $rules['email']);
$validation = \Validator::make($this->attributes, $rules);
if ($validation->passes()) return true;
$this->errors = $validation->messages();
return false;
}
and now in update rule use:
if ($this->userRule->passes($id))
By the way you have error in $if ($this->userRule->passes()) - it should be if and not $if

Answer 2

You can use the route method inside your request class to except an id from the validation
public function rules()
{
return [
'email' => 'required|email|unique:users,email,'.$this->route('user'),
...
];
}

Answer 3

I had a problem like that before and it was difficult to find an answer. Here is what I did.
class UserRules extends Validator {
public function __construct($input = NULL) {
$this->input = $input ?: \Input::all();
if(isset($this->input['id'])):
self::$rules['username'] = 'required|unique:users,username,'.$this->input['id'];
self::$rules['email'] = 'required|email|unique:users,email,'.$this->input['id'];
else:
self::$rules['username'] = 'required|unique:users';
self::$rules['email'] = 'required|email|unique:users';
endif;
}
public static $rules = array(
'company_id' => 'required',
'role' => 'required',
'password' => 'sometimes|required|confirmed'
);
}
You need to use self:: because $rules is static.

Answer 4

I have moved this function:
public function passes($id)
{
$rules = static::$rules;
$rules['username'] = str_replace('{id}', $id, $rules['username']);
$rules['email'] = str_replace('{id}', $id, $rules['email']);
$validation = \Validator::make($this->attributes, $rules);
if($validation->passes()) return true;
$this->errors = $validation->messages();
return false;
}
into UserRule.php and commented the same function in abstract class Validator
Now updating is working.

Answer 5

I solved this problem here on stackoverflow in a generic way. It will automatically adapt your rules if you do an update and add exceptions to your :unique if necessary.