Mastering Laravel Validation

Laravel provides several different approaches to validate your application’s incoming data. Ensuring data is valid before storing it is crucial for application integrity.

#Basic Validation with Controllers

The most common way is using the validate method available on Illuminate\Http\Request objects within your controller methods.

use Illuminate\Http\Request;

public function store(Request $request)
{
    $validated = $request->validate([
        'title' => 'required|unique:posts|max:255',
        'body' => 'required',
        'publish_at' => 'nullable|date',
    ]);

    // The blog post is valid... proceed with storing
}

If validation fails, Laravel automatically redirects the user back to the previous location (usually a form) with the validation errors flashed to the session. For AJAX requests, it returns a JSON response with a 422 status code.

#Form Requests for Complex Validation

For more complex validation scenarios, you can create dedicated Form Request classes. These classes contain their own validation and authorization logic.

php artisan make:request StorePostRequest

Then, type-hint the request in your controller method:

use App\Http\Requests\StorePostRequest;

public function store(StorePostRequest $request)
{
    // The incoming request is valid...
    // Retrieve the validated input data...
    $validated = $request->validated();
}

Laravel offers a wide range of built-in validation rules, and you can also create your own custom rules.