Extending Validator facade for custom validation rules in Laravel
In one of my articles, I’ve explained how you can extend class behavior using macros in Laravel.
So for instance, if you want to add an additional method called makeKebab to Illuminate\Support\Collection class in Laravel, you can use a static macro method like so.
//App\Providers\AppServiceProvider
namespace App\Providers;
use Illuminate\Support\Collection;
use Illuminate\Support\Str;
class AppServiceProvider
{
public function boot()
{
Collection::macro('makeKebab', function () {
return $this->map(function ($value) {
return Str::kebab($value);
});
});
}
}
A similar concept can be used to add custom validation rules to the Validator facade by using the extend method.
The extend method
Laravel provides an extend method which can be used on the Validator facade. The extend method is used to register custom validation rules which are available through the entire application.
So, if we want to add a validation rule to check if each word in the attribute must begin with a capital letter, we can extend it like so.
//App\Providers\AppServiceProvider
namespace App\Providers;
use Illuminate\Support\ServiceProvider;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Validator;
class AppServiceProvider extends ServiceProvider
{
public function boot()
{
Validator::extend('titlecase', function ($attribute, $value, $parameters, $validator) {
return ucwords($value) === $value;
});
}
}
Here, the first parameter of extend is the name of the custom validation rule and the second parameter is the Closure which receives four arguments: the name of the $attribute being validated, the $value of the attribute, an array of $parameters passed to the rule, and the Validator instance.
Using the validation rule
Once defined, the rule can be used while validating request attribute like so.
Validator::make($data, [
'title' => [
'required',
'titlecase',
],
]);
Validation message for the rule
You can set a validation message for the custom validation rule using two ways:
- Using an inline custom message array
In this, you would need to define a validation message within a Request inside messages like so.
public function messages()
{
return [
'titlecase' => 'Each word in :attribute must begin with a capital letter'
];
}
- By adding an entry globally in the validation language file such as
resources/lang/en/validation.phplike so.
return [
'titlecase' => 'Each word in :attribute must begin with a capital letter',
...
...
'custom' => [
'attribute-name' => [
'rule-name' => 'custom-message',
],
],
];
Like this article?
Buy me a coffee
👋 Hi there! I'm Amit. I write articles about all things web development. You can become a sponsor on my blog to help me continue my writing journey and get your brand in front of thousands of eyes.
