Laravel 11.x Validation

Introduction

Laravel provides several different approaches to validate your application's incoming data. It is most common to use the validate method available on all incoming HTTP requests. However, we will discuss other approaches to validation as well.

Laravel includes a wide variety of convenient validation rules that you may apply to data, even providing the ability to validate if values are unique in a given database table. We'll cover each of these validation rules in detail so that you are familiar with all of Laravel's validation features.

Validation Quickstart

To learn about Laravel's powerful validation features, let's look at a complete example of validating a form and displaying the error messages back to the user. By reading this high-level overview, you'll be able to gain a good general understanding of how to validate incoming request data using Laravel:

Defining the Routes

First, let's assume we have the following routes defined in our routes/web.php file:

use App\Http\Controllers\PostController;

Route::get('/post/create', [PostController::class, 'create']);
Route::post('/post', [PostController::class, 'store']);

The GET route will display a form for the user to create a new blog post, while the POST route will store the new blog post in the database.

Creating the Controller

Next, let's take a look at a simple controller that handles incoming requests to these routes. We'll leave the store method empty for now:

<?php

namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use Illuminate\Http\RedirectResponse;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use Illuminate\View\View;

class PostController extends Controller
{
    /**
     * Show the form to create a new blog post.
     */
    public function create(): View
    {
        return view('post.create');
    }

    /**
     * Store a new blog post.
     */
    public function store(Request $request): RedirectResponse
    {
        // Validate and store the blog post...

        $post = /** ... */

        return to_route('post.show', ['post' => $post->id]);
    }
}

Writing the Validation Logic

Now we are ready to fill in our store method with the logic to validate the new blog post. To do this, we will use the validate method provided by the Illuminate\Http\Request object. If the validation rules pass, your code will keep executing normally; however, if validation fails, an Illuminate\Validation\ValidationException exception will be thrown and the proper error response will automatically be sent back to the user.

If validation fails during a traditional HTTP request, a redirect response to the previous URL will be generated. If the incoming request is an XHR request, a JSON response containing the validation error messages will be returned.

To get a better understanding of the validate method, let's jump back into the store method:

/**
 * Store a new blog post.
 */
public function store(Request $request): RedirectResponse
{
    $validated = $request->validate([
        'title' => 'required|unique:posts|max:255',
        'body' => 'required',
    ]);

    // The blog post is valid...

    return redirect('/posts');
}

As you can see, the validation rules are passed into the validate method. Don't worry - all available validation rules are documented. Again, if the validation fails, the proper response will automatically be generated. If the validation passes, our controller will continue executing normally.

Alternatively, validation rules may be specified as arrays of rules instead of a single | delimited string:

$validatedData = $request->validate([
    'title' => ['required', 'unique:posts', 'max:255'],
    'body' => ['required'],
]);

In addition, you may use the validateWithBag method to validate a request and store any error messages within a named error bag:

$validatedData = $request->validateWithBag('post', [
    'title' => ['required', 'unique:posts', 'max:255'],
    'body' => ['required'],
]);

Stopping on First Validation Failure

Sometimes you may wish to stop running validation rules on an attribute after the first validation failure. To do so, assign the bail rule to the attribute:

$request->validate([
    'title' => 'bail|required|unique:posts|max:255',
    'body' => 'required',
]);

In this example, if the unique rule on the title attribute fails, the max rule will not be checked. Rules will be validated in the order they are assigned.

A Note on Nested Attributes

If the incoming HTTP request contains "nested" field data, you may specify these fields in your validation rules using "dot" syntax:

$request->validate([
    'title' => 'required|unique:posts|max:255',
    'author.name' => 'required',
    'author.description' => 'required',
]);

On the other hand, if your field name contains a literal period, you can explicitly prevent this from being interpreted as "dot" syntax by escaping the period with a backslash:

$request->validate([
    'title' => 'required|unique:posts|max:255',
    'v1\.0' => 'required',
]);

Displaying the Validation Errors

So, what if the incoming request fields do not pass the given validation rules? As mentioned previously, Laravel will automatically redirect the user back to their previous location. In addition, all of the validation errors and request input will automatically be flashed to the session.

An $errors variable is shared with all of your application's views by the Illuminate\View\Middleware\ShareErrorsFromSession middleware, which is provided by the web middleware group. When this middleware is applied an $errors variable will always be available in your views, allowing you to conveniently assume the $errors variable is always defined and can be safely used. The $errors variable will be an instance of Illuminate\Support\MessageBag. For more information on working with this object, check out its documentation.

So, in our example, the user will be redirected to our controller's create method when validation fails, allowing us to display the error messages in the view:

<!-- /resources/views/post/create.blade.php -->

<h1>Create Post</h1>

@if ($errors->any())
    <div class="alert alert-danger">
        <ul>
            @foreach ($errors->all() as $error)
                <li>{{ $error }}</li>
            @endforeach
        </ul>
    </div>
@endif

<!-- Create Post Form -->

Customizing the Error Messages

Laravel's built-in validation rules each have an error message that is located in your application's lang/en/validation.php file. If your application does not have a lang directory, you may instruct Laravel to create it using the lang:publish Artisan command.

Within the lang/en/validation.php file, you will find a translation entry for each validation rule. You are free to change or modify these messages based on the needs of your application.

In addition, you may copy this file to another language directory to translate the messages for your application's language. To learn more about Laravel localization, check out the complete localization documentation.

warning Warning!
By default, the Laravel application skeleton does not include the lang directory. If you would like to customize Laravel's language files, you may publish them via the lang:publish Artisan command.

XHR Requests and Validation

In this example, we used a traditional form to send data to the application. However, many applications receive XHR requests from a JavaScript powered frontend. When using the validate method during an XHR request, Laravel will not generate a redirect response. Instead, Laravel generates a JSON response containing all of the validation errors. This JSON response will be sent with a 422 HTTP status code.

The @error Directive

You may use the @error Blade directive to quickly determine if validation error messages exist for a given attribute. Within an @error directive, you may echo the $message variable to display the error message:

<!-- /resources/views/post/create.blade.php -->

<label for="title">Post Title</label>

<input
    id="title"
    type="text"
    name="title"
    class="@error('title') is-invalid @enderror"
/>

@error('title')
    <div class="alert alert-danger">{{ $message }}</div>
@enderror

If you are using named error bags, you may pass the name of the error bag as the second argument to the @error directive:

<input ... class="@error('title', 'post') is-invalid @enderror">

Repopulating Forms

When Laravel generates a redirect response due to a validation error, the framework will automatically flash all of the request's input to the session. This is done so that you may conveniently access the input during the next request and repopulate the form that the user attempted to submit.

To retrieve flashed input from the previous request, invoke the old method on an instance of Illuminate\Http\Request. The old method will pull the previously flashed input data from the session:

$title = $request->old('title');

Laravel also provides a global old helper. If you are displaying old input within a Blade template, it is more convenient to use the old helper to repopulate the form. If no old input exists for the given field, null will be returned:

<input type="text" name="title" value="{{ old('title') }}">

A Note on Optional Fields

By default, Laravel includes the TrimStrings and ConvertEmptyStringsToNull middleware in your application's global middleware stack. Because of this, you will often need to mark your "optional" request fields as nullable if you do not want the validator to consider null values as invalid. For example:

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

In this example, we are specifying that the publish_at field may be either null or a valid date representation. If the nullable modifier is not added to the rule definition, the validator would consider null an invalid date.

Validation Error Response Format

When your application throws a Illuminate\Validation\ValidationException exception and the incoming HTTP request is expecting a JSON response, Laravel will automatically format the error messages for you and return a 422 Unprocessable Entity HTTP response.

Below, you can review an example of the JSON response format for validation errors. Note that nested error keys are flattened into "dot" notation format:

{
    "message": "The team name must be a string. (and 4 more errors)",
    "errors": {
        "team_name": [
            "The team name must be a string.",
            "The team name must be at least 1 characters."
        ],
        "authorization.role": [
            "The selected authorization.role is invalid."
        ],
        "users.0.email": [
            "The users.0.email field is required."
        ],
        "users.2.email": [
            "The users.2.email must be a valid email address."
        ]
    }
}

Form Request Validation

Creating Form Requests

For more complex validation scenarios, you may wish to create a "form request". Form requests are custom request classes that encapsulate their own validation and authorization logic. To create a form request class, you may use the make:request Artisan CLI command:

php artisan make:request StorePostRequest

The generated form request class will be placed in the app/Http/Requests directory. If this directory does not exist, it will be created when you run the make:request command. Each form request generated by Laravel has two methods: authorize and rules.

As you might have guessed, the authorize method is responsible for determining if the currently authenticated user can perform the action represented by the request, while the rules method returns the validation rules that should apply to the request's data:

/**
 * Get the validation rules that apply to the request.
 *
 * @return array<string, \Illuminate\Contracts\Validation\ValidationRule|array<mixed>|string>
 */
public function rules(): array
{
    return [
        'title' => 'required|unique:posts|max:255',
        'body' => 'required',
    ];
}

lightbulb Note:
You may type-hint any dependencies you require within the rules method's signature. They will automatically be resolved via the Laravel service container.

So, how are the validation rules evaluated? All you need to do is type-hint the request on your controller method. The incoming form request is validated before the controller method is called, meaning you do not need to clutter your controller with any validation logic:

/**
 * Store a new blog post.
 */
public function store(StorePostRequest $request): RedirectResponse
{
    // The incoming request is valid...

    // Retrieve the validated input data...
    $validated = $request->validated();

    // Retrieve a portion of the validated input data...
    $validated = $request->safe()->only(['name', 'email']);
    $validated = $request->safe()->except(['name', 'email']);

    // Store the blog post...

    return redirect('/posts');
}

If validation fails, a redirect response will be generated to send the user back to their previous location. The errors will also be flashed to the session so they are available for display. If the request was an XHR request, an HTTP response with a 422 status code will be returned to the user including a JSON representation of the validation errors.

lightbulb Note:
Need to add real-time form request validation to your Inertia powered Laravel frontend? Check out Laravel Precognition.

Performing Additional Validation

Sometimes you need to perform additional validation after your initial validation is complete. You can accomplish this using the form request's after method.

The after method should return an array of callables or closures which will be invoked after validation is complete. The given callables will receive an Illuminate\Validation\Validator instance, allowing you to raise additional error messages if necessary:

use Illuminate\Validation\Validator;

/**
 * Get the "after" validation callables for the request.
 */
public function after(): array
{
    return [
        function (Validator $validator) {
            if ($this->somethingElseIsInvalid()) {
                $validator->errors()->add(
                    'field',
                    'Something is wrong with this field!'
                );
            }
        }
    ];
}

As noted, the array returned by the after method may also contain invokable classes. The __invoke method of these classes will receive an Illuminate\Validation\Validator instance:

use App\Validation\ValidateShippingTime;
use App\Validation\ValidateUserStatus;
use Illuminate\Validation\Validator;

/**
 * Get the "after" validation callables for the request.
 */
public function after(): array
{
    return [
        new ValidateUserStatus,
        new ValidateShippingTime,
        function (Validator $validator) {
            //
        }
    ];
}

Stopping on the First Validation Failure

By adding a stopOnFirstFailure property to your request class, you may inform the validator that it should stop validating all attributes once a single validation failure has occurred:

/**
 * Indicates if the validator should stop on the first rule failure.
 *
 * @var bool
 */
protected $stopOnFirstFailure = true;

Customizing the Redirect Location

As previously discussed, a redirect response will be generated to send the user back to their previous location when form request validation fails. However, you are free to customize this behavior. To do so, define a $redirect property on your form request:

/**
 * The URI that users should be redirected to if validation fails.
 *
 * @var string
 */
protected $redirect = '/dashboard';

Or, if you would like to redirect users to a named route, you may define a $redirectRoute property instead:

/**
 * The route that users should be redirected to if validation fails.
 *
 * @var string
 */
protected $redirectRoute = 'dashboard';

Authorizing Form Requests

The form request class also contains an authorize method. Within this method, you may determine if the authenticated user actually has the authority to update a given resource. For example, you may determine if a user actually owns a blog comment they are attempting to update. Most likely, you will interact with your authorization gates and policies within this method:

use App\Models\Comment;

/**
 * Determine if the user is authorized to make this request.
 */
public function authorize(): bool
{
    $comment = Comment::find($this->route('comment'));

    return $comment && $this->user()->can('update', $comment);
}

Since all form requests extend the base Laravel request class, we may use the user method to access the currently authenticated user. Also, note the call to the route method in the example above. This method grants you access to the URI parameters defined on the route being called, such as the {comment} parameter in the example below:

Route::post('/comment/{comment}');

Therefore, if your application is taking advantage of route model binding, your code may be made even more succinct by accessing the resolved model as a property of the request:

return $this->user()->can('update', $this->comment);

If the authorize method returns false, an HTTP response with a 403 status code will automatically be returned and your controller method will not execute.

If you plan to handle authorization logic for the request in another part of your application, you may remove the authorize method completely, or simply return true:

/**
 * Determine if the user is authorized to make this request.
 */
public function authorize(): bool
{
    return true;
}

lightbulb Note:
You may type-hint any dependencies you need within the authorize method's signature. They will automatically be resolved via the Laravel service container.

Customizing the Error Messages

You may customize the error messages used by the form request by overriding the messages method. This method should return an array of attribute / rule pairs and their corresponding error messages:

/**
 * Get the error messages for the defined validation rules.
 *
 * @return array<string, string>
 */
public function messages(): array
{
    return [
        'title.required' => 'A title is required',
        'body.required' => 'A message is required',
    ];
}

Customizing the Validation Attributes

Many of Laravel's built-in validation rule error messages contain an :attribute placeholder. If you would like the :attribute placeholder of your validation message to be replaced with a custom attribute name, you may specify the custom names by overriding the attributes method. This method should return an array of attribute / name pairs:

/**
 * Get custom attributes for validator errors.
 *
 * @return array<string, string>
 */
public function attributes(): array
{
    return [
        'email' => 'email address',
    ];
}

Preparing Input for Validation

If you need to prepare or sanitize any data from the request before you apply your validation rules, you may use the prepareForValidation method:

use Illuminate\Support\Str;

/**
 * Prepare the data for validation.
 */
protected function prepareForValidation(): void
{
    $this->merge([
        'slug' => Str::slug($this->slug),
    ]);
}

Likewise, if you need to normalize any request data after validation is complete, you may use the passedValidation method:

/**
 * Handle a passed validation attempt.
 */
protected function passedValidation(): void
{
    $this->replace(['name' => 'Taylor']);
}

Manually Creating Validators

If you do not want to use the validate method on the request, you may create a validator instance manually using the Validator facade. The make method on the facade generates a new validator instance:

<?php

namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use Illuminate\Http\RedirectResponse;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Validator;

class PostController extends Controller
{
    /**
     * Store a new blog post.
     */
    public function store(Request $request): RedirectResponse
    {
        $validator = Validator::make($request->all(), [
            'title' => 'required|unique:posts|max:255',
            'body' => 'required',
        ]);

        if ($validator->fails()) {
            return redirect('/post/create')
                        ->withErrors($validator)
                        ->withInput();
        }

        // Retrieve the validated input...
        $validated = $validator->validated();

        // Retrieve a portion of the validated input...
        $validated = $validator->safe()->only(['name', 'email']);
        $validated = $validator->safe()->except(['name', 'email']);

        // Store the blog post...

        return redirect('/posts');
    }
}

The first argument passed to the make method is the data under validation. The second argument is an array of the validation rules that should be applied to the data.

After determining whether the request validation failed, you may use the withErrors method to flash the error messages to the session. When using this method, the $errors variable will automatically be shared with your views after redirection, allowing you to easily display them back to the user. The withErrors method accepts a validator, a MessageBag, or a PHP array.

Stopping on First Validation Failure

The stopOnFirstFailure method will inform the validator that it should stop validating all attributes once a single validation failure has occurred:

if ($validator->stopOnFirstFailure()->fails()) {
    // ...
}

Automatic Redirection

If you would like to create a validator instance manually but still take advantage of the automatic redirection offered by the HTTP request's validate method, you may call the validate method on an existing validator instance. If validation fails, the user will automatically be redirected or, in the case of an XHR request, a JSON response will be returned:

Validator::make($request->all(), [
    'title' => 'required|unique:posts|max:255',
    'body' => 'required',
])->validate();

You may use the validateWithBag method to store the error messages in a named error bag if validation fails:

Validator::make($request->all(), [
    'title' => 'required|unique:posts|max:255',
    'body' => 'required',
])->validateWithBag('post');

Named Error Bags

If you have multiple forms on a single page, you may wish to name the MessageBag containing the validation errors, allowing you to retrieve the error messages for a specific form. To achieve this, pass a name as the second argument to withErrors:

return redirect('/register')->withErrors($validator, 'login');

You may then access the named MessageBag instance from the $errors variable:

{{ $errors->login->first('email') }}

Customizing the Error Messages

If needed, you may provide custom error messages that a validator instance should use instead of the default error messages provided by Laravel. There are several ways to specify custom messages. First, you may pass the custom messages as the third argument to the Validator::make method:

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

In this example, the :attribute placeholder will be replaced by the actual name of the field under validation. You may also utilize other placeholders in validation messages. For example:

$messages = [
    'same' => 'The :attribute and :other must match.',
    'size' => 'The :attribute must be exactly :size.',
    'between' => 'The :attribute value :input is not between :min - :max.',
    'in' => 'The :attribute must be one of the following types: :values',
];

Specifying a Custom Message for a Given Attribute

Sometimes you may wish to specify a custom error message only for a specific attribute. You may do so using "dot" notation. Specify the attribute's name first, followed by the rule:

$messages = [
    'email.required' => 'We need to know your email address!',
];

Specifying Custom Attribute Values

Many of Laravel's built-in error messages include an :attribute placeholder that is replaced with the name of the field or attribute under validation. To customize the values used to replace these placeholders for specific fields, you may pass an array of custom attributes as the fourth argument to the Validator::make method:

$validator = Validator::make($input, $rules, $messages, [
    'email' => 'email address',
]);

Performing Additional Validation

Sometimes you need to perform additional validation after your initial validation is complete. You can accomplish this using the validator's after method. The after method accepts a closure or an array of callables which will be invoked after validation is complete. The given callables will receive an Illuminate\Validation\Validator instance, allowing you to raise additional error messages if necessary:

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Validator;

$validator = Validator::make(/* ... */);

$validator->after(function ($validator) {
    if ($this->somethingElseIsInvalid()) {
        $validator->errors()->add(
            'field', 'Something is wrong with this field!'
        );
    }
});

if ($validator->fails()) {
    // ...
}

As noted, the after method also accepts an array of callables, which is particularly convenient if your "after validation" logic is encapsulated in invokable classes, which will receive an Illuminate\Validation\Validator instance via their __invoke method:

use App\Validation\ValidateShippingTime;
use App\Validation\ValidateUserStatus;

$validator->after([
    new ValidateUserStatus,
    new ValidateShippingTime,
    function ($validator) {
        // ...
    },
]);

Working With Validated Input

After validating incoming request data using a form request or a manually created validator instance, you may wish to retrieve the incoming request data that actually underwent validation. This can be accomplished in several ways. First, you may call the validated method on a form request or validator instance. This method returns an array of the data that was validated:

$validated = $request->validated();

$validated = $validator->validated();

Alternatively, you may call the safe method on a form request or validator instance. This method returns an instance of Illuminate\Support\ValidatedInput. This object exposes only, except, and all methods to retrieve a subset of the validated data or the entire array of validated data:

$validated = $request->safe()->only(['name', 'email']);

$validated = $request->safe()->except(['name', 'email']);

$validated = $request->safe()->all();

In addition, the Illuminate\Support\ValidatedInput instance may be iterated over and accessed like an array:

// Validated data may be iterated...
foreach ($request->safe() as $key => $value) {
    // ...
}

// Validated data may be accessed as an array...
$validated = $request->safe();

$email = $validated['email'];

If you would like to add additional fields to the validated data, you may call the merge method:

$validated = $request->safe()->merge(['name' => 'Taylor Otwell']);

If you would like to retrieve the validated data as a collection instance, you may call the collect method:

$collection = $request->safe()->collect();

Working With Error Messages

After calling the errors method on a Validator instance, you will receive an Illuminate\Support\MessageBag instance, which has a variety of convenient methods for working with error messages. The $errors variable that is automatically made available to all views is also an instance of the MessageBag class.

Retrieving the First Error Message for a Field

To retrieve the first error message for a given field, use the first method:

$errors = $validator->errors();

echo $errors->first('email');

Retrieving All Error Messages for a Field

If you need to retrieve an array of all the messages for a given field, use the get method:

foreach ($errors->get('email') as $message) {
    // ...
}

If you are validating an array form field, you may retrieve all of the messages for each of the array elements using the * character:

foreach ($errors->get('attachments.*') as $message) {
    // ...
}

Retrieving All Error Messages for All Fields

To retrieve an array of all messages for all fields, use the all method:

foreach ($errors->all() as $message) {
    // ...
}

Determining if Messages Exist for a Field

The has method may be used to determine if any error messages exist for a given field:

if ($errors->has('email')) {
    // ...
}

Specifying Custom Messages in Language Files

Laravel's built-in validation rules each have an error message that is located in your application's lang/en/validation.php file. If your application does not have a lang directory, you may instruct Laravel to create it using the lang:publish Artisan command.

Within the lang/en/validation.php file, you will find a translation entry for each validation rule. You are free to change or modify these messages based on the needs of your application.

In addition, you may copy this file to another language directory to translate the messages for your application's language. To learn more about Laravel localization, check out the complete localization documentation.

warning Warning!
By default, the Laravel application skeleton does not include the lang directory. If you would like to customize Laravel's language files, you may publish them via the lang:publish Artisan command.

Custom Messages for Specific Attributes

You may customize the error messages used for specified attribute and rule combinations within your application's validation language files. To do so, add your message customizations to the custom array of your application's lang/xx/validation.php language file:

'custom' => [
    'email' => [
        'required' => 'We need to know your email address!',
        'max' => 'Your email address is too long!'
    ],
],

Specifying Attributes in Language Files

Many of Laravel's built-in error messages include an :attribute placeholder that is replaced with the name of the field or attribute under validation. If you would like the :attribute portion of your validation message to be replaced with a custom value, you may specify the custom attribute name in the attributes array of your lang/xx/validation.php language file:

'attributes' => [
    'email' => 'email address',
],

warning Warning!
By default, the Laravel application skeleton does not include the lang directory. If you would like to customize Laravel's language files, you may publish them via the lang:publish Artisan command.

Specifying Values in Language Files

Some of Laravel's built-in validation rule error messages contain a :value placeholder that is replaced with the current value of the request attribute. However, you may occasionally need the :value portion of your validation message to be replaced with a custom representation of the value. For example, consider the following rule that specifies that a credit card number is required if the payment_type has a value of cc:

Validator::make($request->all(), [
    'credit_card_number' => 'required_if:payment_type,cc'
]);

If this validation rule fails, it will produce the following error message:

The credit card number field is required when payment type is cc.

Instead of displaying cc as the payment type value, you may specify a more user-friendly value representation in your lang/xx/validation.php language file by defining a values array:

'values' => [
    'payment_type' => [
        'cc' => 'credit card'
    ],
],

warning Warning!
By default, the Laravel application skeleton does not include the lang directory. If you would like to customize Laravel's language files, you may publish them via the lang:publish Artisan command.

After defining this value, the validation rule will produce the following error message:

The credit card number field is required when payment type is credit card.

Available Validation Rules

Below is a list of all available validation rules and their function:

accepted

The field under validation must be "yes", "on", 1, "1", true, or "true". This is useful for validating "Terms of Service" acceptance or similar fields.

accepted_if:anotherfield,value,...

The field under validation must be "yes", "on", 1, "1", true, or "true" if another field under validation is equal to a specified value. This is useful for validating "Terms of Service" acceptance or similar fields.

active_url

The field under validation must have a valid A or AAAA record according to the dns_get_record PHP function. The hostname of the provided URL is extracted using the parse_url PHP function before being passed to dns_get_record.

after:date

The field under validation must be a value after a given date. The dates will be passed into the strtotime PHP function in order to be converted to a valid DateTime instance:

'start_date' => 'required|date|after:tomorrow'

Instead of passing a date string to be evaluated by strtotime, you may specify another field to compare against the date:

'finish_date' => 'required|date|after:start_date'

after_or_equal:date

The field under validation must be a value after or equal to the given date. For more information, see the after rule.

alpha

The field under validation must be entirely Unicode alphabetic characters contained in \p{L} and \p{M}.

To restrict this validation rule to characters in the ASCII range (a-z and A-Z), you may provide the ascii option to the validation rule:

'username' => 'alpha:ascii',

alpha_dash

The field under validation must be entirely Unicode alpha-numeric characters contained in \p{L}, \p{M}, \p{N}, as well as ASCII dashes (-) and ASCII underscores (_).

To restrict this validation rule to characters in the ASCII range (a-z and A-Z), you may provide the ascii option to the validation rule:

'username' => 'alpha_dash:ascii',

alpha_num

The field under validation must be entirely Unicode alpha-numeric characters contained in \p{L}, \p{M}, and \p{N}.

To restrict this validation rule to characters in the ASCII range (a-z and A-Z), you may provide the ascii option to the validation rule:

'username' => 'alpha_num:ascii',

array

The field under validation must be a PHP array.

When additional values are provided to the array rule, each key in the input array must be present within the list of values provided to the rule. In the following example, the admin key in the input array is invalid since it is not contained in the list of values provided to the array rule:

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Validator;

$input = [
    'user' => [
        'name' => 'Taylor Otwell',
        'username' => 'taylorotwell',
        'admin' => true,
    ],
];

Validator::make($input, [
    'user' => 'array:name,username',
]);

In general, you should always specify the array keys that are allowed to be present within your array.

ascii

The field under validation must be entirely 7-bit ASCII characters.

bail

Stop running validation rules for the field after the first validation failure.

While the bail rule will only stop validating a specific field when it encounters a validation failure, the stopOnFirstFailure method will inform the validator that it should stop validating all attributes once a single validation failure has occurred:

if ($validator->stopOnFirstFailure()->fails()) {
    // ...
}

before:date

The field under validation must be a value preceding the given date. The dates will be passed into the PHP strtotime function in order to be converted into a valid DateTime instance. In addition, like the after rule, the name of another field under validation may be supplied as the value of date.

before_or_equal:date

The field under validation must be a value preceding or equal to the given date. The dates will be passed into the PHP strtotime function in order to be converted into a valid DateTime instance. In addition, like the after rule, the name of another field under validation may be supplied as the value of date.

between:min,max

The field under validation must have a size between the given min and max (inclusive). Strings, numerics, arrays, and files are evaluated in the same fashion as the size rule.

boolean

The field under validation must be able to be cast as a boolean. Accepted input are true, false, 1, 0, "1", and "0".

confirmed

The field under validation must have a matching field of {field}_confirmation. For example, if the field under validation is password, a matching password_confirmation field must be present in the input.

You may also pass a custom confirmation field name. For example, confirmed:repeat_username will expect the field repeat_username to match the field under validation.

contains:foo,bar,...

The field under validation must be an array that contains all of the given parameter values.

current_password

The field under validation must match the authenticated user's password. You may specify an authentication guard using the rule's first parameter:

'password' => 'current_password:api'

date

The field under validation must be a valid, non-relative date according to the strtotime PHP function.

date_equals:date

The field under validation must be equal to the given date. The dates will be passed into the PHP strtotime function in order to be converted into a valid DateTime instance.

date_format:format,...

The field under validation must match one of the given formats. You should use either date or date_format when validating a field, not both. This validation rule supports all formats supported by PHP's DateTime class.

decimal:min,max

The field under validation must be numeric and must contain the specified number of decimal places:

// Must have exactly two decimal places (9.99)...
'price' => 'decimal:2'

// Must have between 2 and 4 decimal places...
'price' => 'decimal:2,4'

declined

The field under validation must be "no", "off", 0, "0", false, or "false".

declined_if:anotherfield,value,...

The field under validation must be "no", "off", 0, "0", false, or "false" if another field under validation is equal to a specified value.

different:field

The field under validation must have a different value than field.

digits:value

The integer under validation must have an exact length of value.

digits_between:min,max

The integer validation must have a length between the given min and max.

dimensions

The file under validation must be an image meeting the dimension constraints as specified by the rule's parameters:

'avatar' => 'dimensions:min_width=100,min_height=200'

Available constraints are: min_width, max_width, min_height, max_height, width, height, ratio.

A ratio constraint should be represented as width divided by height. This can be specified either by a fraction like 3/2 or a float like 1.5:

'avatar' => 'dimensions:ratio=3/2'

Since this rule requires several arguments, you may use the Rule::dimensions method to fluently construct the rule:

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Validator;
use Illuminate\Validation\Rule;

Validator::make($data, [
    'avatar' => [
        'required',
        Rule::dimensions()->maxWidth(1000)->maxHeight(500)->ratio(3 / 2),
    ],
]);

distinct

When validating arrays, the field under validation must not have any duplicate values:

'foo.*.id' => 'distinct'

Distinct uses loose variable comparisons by default. To use strict comparisons, you may add the strict parameter to your validation rule definition:

'foo.*.id' => 'distinct:strict'

You may add ignore_case to the validation rule's arguments to make the rule ignore capitalization differences:

'foo.*.id' => 'distinct:ignore_case'

doesnt_start_with:foo,bar,...

The field under validation must not start with one of the given values.

doesnt_end_with:foo,bar,...

The field under validation must not end with one of the given values.

email

The field under validation must be formatted as an email address. This validation rule utilizes the egulias/email-validator package for validating the email address. By default, the RFCValidation validator is applied, but you can apply other validation styles as well:

'email' => 'email:rfc,dns'

The example above will apply the RFCValidation and DNSCheckValidation validations. Here's a full list of validation styles you can apply:

The filter validator, which uses PHP's filter_var function, ships with Laravel and was Laravel's default email validation behavior prior to Laravel version 5.8.

warning Warning!
The dns and spoof validators require the PHP intl extension.

ends_with:foo,bar,...

The field under validation must end with one of the given values.

enum

The Enum rule is a class based rule that validates whether the field under validation contains a valid enum value. The Enum rule accepts the name of the enum as its only constructor argument. When validating primitive values, a backed Enum should be provided to the Enum rule:

use App\Enums\ServerStatus;
use Illuminate\Validation\Rule;

$request->validate([
    'status' => [Rule::enum(ServerStatus::class)],
]);

The Enum rule's only and except methods may be used to limit which enum cases should be considered valid:

Rule::enum(ServerStatus::class)
    ->only([ServerStatus::Pending, ServerStatus::Active]);

Rule::enum(ServerStatus::class)
    ->except([ServerStatus::Pending, ServerStatus::Active]);

The when method may be used to conditionally modify the Enum rule:

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Auth;
use Illuminate\Validation\Rule;

Rule::enum(ServerStatus::class)
    ->when(
        Auth::user()->isAdmin(),
        fn ($rule) => $rule->only(...),
        fn ($rule) => $rule->only(...),
    );

exclude

The field under validation will be excluded from the request data returned by the validate and validated methods.

exclude_if:anotherfield,value

The field under validation will be excluded from the request data returned by the validate and validated methods if the anotherfield field is equal to value.

If complex conditional exclusion logic is required, you may utilize the Rule::excludeIf method. This method accepts a boolean or a closure. When given a closure, the closure should return true or false to indicate if the field under validation should be excluded:

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Validator;
use Illuminate\Validation\Rule;

Validator::make($request->all(), [
    'role_id' => Rule::excludeIf($request->user()->is_admin),
]);

Validator::make($request->all(), [
    'role_id' => Rule::excludeIf(fn () => $request->user()->is_admin),
]);

exclude_unless:anotherfield,value

The field under validation will be excluded from the request data returned by the validate and validated methods unless anotherfield's field is equal to value. If value is null (exclude_unless:name,null), the field under validation will be excluded unless the comparison field is null or the comparison field is missing from the request data.

exclude_with:anotherfield

The field under validation will be excluded from the request data returned by the validate and validated methods if the anotherfield field is present.

exclude_without:anotherfield

The field under validation will be excluded from the request data returned by the validate and validated methods if the anotherfield field is not present.

exists:table,column

The field under validation must exist in a given database table.

Basic Usage of Exists Rule

'state' => 'exists:states'

If the column option is not specified, the field name will be used. So, in this case, the rule will validate that the states database table contains a record with a state column value matching the request's state attribute value.

Specifying a Custom Column Name

You may explicitly specify the database column name that should be used by the validation rule by placing it after the database table name:

'state' => 'exists:states,abbreviation'

Occasionally, you may need to specify a specific database connection to be used for the exists query. You can accomplish this by prepending the connection name to the table name:

'email' => 'exists:connection.staff,email'

Instead of specifying the table name directly, you may specify the Eloquent model which should be used to determine the table name:

'user_id' => 'exists:App\Models\User,id'

If you would like to customize the query executed by the validation rule, you may use the Rule class to fluently define the rule. In this example, we'll also specify the validation rules as an array instead of using the | character to delimit them:

use Illuminate\Database\Query\Builder;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Validator;
use Illuminate\Validation\Rule;

Validator::make($data, [
    'email' => [
        'required',
        Rule::exists('staff')->where(function (Builder $query) {
            return $query->where('account_id', 1);
        }),
    ],
]);

You may explicitly specify the database column name that should be used by the exists rule generated by the Rule::exists method by providing the column name as the second argument to the exists method:

'state' => Rule::exists('states', 'abbreviation'),

extensions:foo,bar,...

The file under validation must have a user-assigned extension corresponding to one of the listed extensions:

'photo' => ['required', 'extensions:jpg,png'],

warning Warning!
You should never rely on validating a file by its user-assigned extension alone. This rule should typically always be used in combination with the mimes or mimetypes rules.

file

The field under validation must be a successfully uploaded file.

filled

The field under validation must not be empty when it is present.

gt:field

The field under validation must be greater than the given field or value. The two fields must be of the same type. Strings, numerics, arrays, and files are evaluated using the same conventions as the size rule.

gte:field

The field under validation must be greater than or equal to the given field or value. The two fields must be of the same type. Strings, numerics, arrays, and files are evaluated using the same conventions as the size rule.

hex_color

The field under validation must contain a valid color value in hexadecimal format.

image

The file under validation must be an image (jpg, jpeg, png, bmp, gif, svg, or webp).

in:foo,bar,...

The field under validation must be included in the given list of values. Since this rule often requires you to implode an array, the Rule::in method may be used to fluently construct the rule:

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Validator;
use Illuminate\Validation\Rule;

Validator::make($data, [
    'zones' => [
        'required',
        Rule::in(['first-zone', 'second-zone']),
    ],
]);

When the in rule is combined with the array rule, each value in the input array must be present within the list of values provided to the in rule. In the following example, the LAS airport code in the input array is invalid since it is not contained in the list of airports provided to the in rule:

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Validator;
use Illuminate\Validation\Rule;

$input = [
    'airports' => ['NYC', 'LAS'],
];

Validator::make($input, [
    'airports' => [
        'required',
        'array',
    ],
    'airports.*' => Rule::in(['NYC', 'LIT']),
]);

in_array:anotherfield.*

The field under validation must exist in anotherfield's values.

integer

The field under validation must be an integer.

warning Warning!
This validation rule does not verify that the input is of the "integer" variable type, only that the input is of a type accepted by PHP's FILTER_VALIDATE_INT rule. If you need to validate the input as being a number please use this rule in combination with the numeric validation rule.

ip

The field under validation must be an IP address.

ipv4

The field under validation must be an IPv4 address.

ipv6

The field under validation must be an IPv6 address.

json

The field under validation must be a valid JSON string.

lt:field

The field under validation must be less than the given field. The two fields must be of the same type. Strings, numerics, arrays, and files are evaluated using the same conventions as the size rule.

lte:field

The field under validation must be less than or equal to the given field. The two fields must be of the same type. Strings, numerics, arrays, and files are evaluated using the same conventions as the size rule.

lowercase

The field under validation must be lowercase.

list

The field under validation must be an array that is a list. An array is considered a list if its keys consist of consecutive numbers from 0 to count($array) - 1.

mac_address

The field under validation must be a MAC address.

max:value

The field under validation must be less than or equal to a maximum value. Strings, numerics, arrays, and files are evaluated in the same fashion as the size rule.

max_digits:value

The integer under validation must have a maximum length of value.

mimetypes:text/plain,...

The file under validation must match one of the given MIME types:

'video' => 'mimetypes:video/avi,video/mpeg,video/quicktime'

To determine the MIME type of the uploaded file, the file's contents will be read and the framework will attempt to guess the MIME type, which may be different from the client's provided MIME type.

mimes:foo,bar,...

The file under validation must have a MIME type corresponding to one of the listed extensions:

'photo' => 'mimes:jpg,bmp,png'

Even though you only need to specify the extensions, this rule actually validates the MIME type of the file by reading the file's contents and guessing its MIME type. A full listing of MIME types and their corresponding extensions may be found at the following location:

https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/httpd/httpd/trunk/docs/conf/mime.types

MIME Types and Extensions

This validation rule does not verify agreement between the MIME type and the extension the user assigned to the file. For example, the mimes:png validation rule would consider a file containing valid PNG content to be a valid PNG image, even if the file is named photo.txt. If you would like to validate the user-assigned extension of the file, you may use the extensions rule.

min:value

The field under validation must have a minimum value. Strings, numerics, arrays, and files are evaluated in the same fashion as the size rule.

min_digits:value

The integer under validation must have a minimum length of value.

multiple_of:value

The field under validation must be a multiple of value.

missing

The field under validation must not be present in the input data.

missing_if:anotherfield,value,...

The field under validation must not be present if the anotherfield field is equal to any value.

missing_unless:anotherfield,value

The field under validation must not be present unless the anotherfield field is equal to any value.

missing_with:foo,bar,...

The field under validation must not be present only if any of the other specified fields are present.

missing_with_all:foo,bar,...

The field under validation must not be present only if all of the other specified fields are present.

not_in:foo,bar,...

The field under validation must not be included in the given list of values. The Rule::notIn method may be used to fluently construct the rule:

use Illuminate\Validation\Rule;

Validator::make($data, [
    'toppings' => [
        'required',
        Rule::notIn(['sprinkles', 'cherries']),
    ],
]);

not_regex:pattern

The field under validation must not match the given regular expression.

Internally, this rule uses the PHP preg_match function. The pattern specified should obey the same formatting required by preg_match and thus also include valid delimiters. For example: 'email' => 'not_regex:/^.+$/i'.

warning Warning!
When using the regex / not_regex patterns, it may be necessary to specify your validation rules using an array instead of using | delimiters, especially if the regular expression contains a | character.

nullable

The field under validation may be null.

numeric

The field under validation must be numeric.

present

The field under validation must exist in the input data.

present_if:anotherfield,value,...

The field under validation must be present if the anotherfield field is equal to any value.

present_unless:anotherfield,value

The field under validation must be present unless the anotherfield field is equal to any value.

present_with:foo,bar,...

The field under validation must be present only if any of the other specified fields are present.

present_with_all:foo,bar,...

The field under validation must be present only if all of the other specified fields are present.

prohibited

The field under validation must be missing or empty. A field is "empty" if it meets one of the following criteria:

prohibited_if:anotherfield,value,...

The field under validation must be missing or empty if the anotherfield field is equal to any value. A field is "empty" if it meets one of the following criteria:

If complex conditional prohibition logic is required, you may utilize the Rule::prohibitedIf method. This method accepts a boolean or a closure. When given a closure, the closure should return true or false to indicate if the field under validation should be prohibited:

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Validator;
use Illuminate\Validation\Rule;

Validator::make($request->all(), [
    'role_id' => Rule::prohibitedIf($request->user()->is_admin),
]);

Validator::make($request->all(), [
    'role_id' => Rule::prohibitedIf(fn () => $request->user()->is_admin),
]);

prohibited_unless:anotherfield,value,...

The field under validation must be missing or empty unless the anotherfield field is equal to any value. A field is "empty" if it meets one of the following criteria:

prohibits:anotherfield,...

If the field under validation is not missing or empty, all fields in anotherfield must be missing or empty. A field is "empty" if it meets one of the following criteria:

regex:pattern

The field under validation must match the given regular expression.

Internally, this rule uses the PHP preg_match function. The pattern specified should obey the same formatting required by preg_match and thus also include valid delimiters. For example: 'email' => 'regex:/^.+@.+$/i'.

warning Warning!
When using the regex / not_regex patterns, it may be necessary to specify rules in an array instead of using | delimiters, especially if the regular expression contains a | character.

required

The field under validation must be present in the input data and not empty. A field is "empty" if it meets one of the following criteria:

required_if:anotherfield,value,...

The field under validation must be present and not empty if the anotherfield field is equal to any value.

If you would like to construct a more complex condition for the required_if rule, you may use the Rule::requiredIf method. This method accepts a boolean or a closure. When passed a closure, the closure should return true or false to indicate if the field under validation is required:

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Validator;
use Illuminate\Validation\Rule;

Validator::make($request->all(), [
    'role_id' => Rule::requiredIf($request->user()->is_admin),
]);

Validator::make($request->all(), [
    'role_id' => Rule::requiredIf(fn () => $request->user()->is_admin),
]);

required_if_accepted:anotherfield,...

The field under validation must be present and not empty if the anotherfield field is equal to "yes", "on", 1, "1", true, or "true".

required_if_declined:anotherfield,...

The field under validation must be present and not empty if the anotherfield field is equal to "no", "off", 0, "0", false, or "false".

required_unless:anotherfield,value,...

The field under validation must be present and not empty unless the anotherfield field is equal to any value. This also means anotherfield must be present in the request data unless value is null. If value is null (required_unless:name,null), the field under validation will be required unless the comparison field is null or the comparison field is missing from the request data.

required_with:foo,bar,...

The field under validation must be present and not empty only if any of the other specified fields are present and not empty.

required_with_all:foo,bar,...

The field under validation must be present and not empty only if all of the other specified fields are present and not empty.

required_without:foo,bar,...

The field under validation must be present and not empty only when any of the other specified fields are empty or not present.

required_without_all:foo,bar,...

The field under validation must be present and not empty only when all of the other specified fields are empty or not present.

required_array_keys:foo,bar,...

The field under validation must be an array and must contain at least the specified keys.

same:field

The given field must match the field under validation.

size:value

The field under validation must have a size matching the given value. For string data, value corresponds to the number of characters. For numeric data, value corresponds to a given integer value (the attribute must also have the numeric or integer rule). For an array, size corresponds to the count of the array. For files, size corresponds to the file size in kilobytes. Let's look at some examples:

// Validate that a string is exactly 12 characters long...
'title' => 'size:12';

// Validate that a provided integer equals 10...
'seats' => 'integer|size:10';

// Validate that an array has exactly 5 elements...
'tags' => 'array|size:5';

// Validate that an uploaded file is exactly 512 kilobytes...
'image' => 'file|size:512';

starts_with:foo,bar,...

The field under validation must start with one of the given values.

string

The field under validation must be a string. If you would like to allow the field to also be null, you should assign the nullable rule to the field.

timezone

The field under validation must be a valid timezone identifier according to the DateTimeZone::listIdentifiers method.

The arguments accepted by the DateTimeZone::listIdentifiers method may also be provided to this validation rule:

'timezone' => 'required|timezone:all';

'timezone' => 'required|timezone:Africa';

'timezone' => 'required|timezone:per_country,US';

unique:table,column

The field under validation must not exist within the given database table.

Specifying a Custom Table / Column Name:

Instead of specifying the table name directly, you may specify the Eloquent model which should be used to determine the table name:

'email' => 'unique:App\Models\User,email_address'

The column option may be used to specify the field's corresponding database column. If the column option is not specified, the name of the field under validation will be used.

'email' => 'unique:users,email_address'

Specifying a Custom Database Connection

Occasionally, you may need to set a custom connection for database queries made by the Validator. To accomplish this, you may prepend the connection name to the table name:

'email' => 'unique:connection.users,email_address'

Forcing a Unique Rule to Ignore a Given ID:

Sometimes, you may wish to ignore a given ID during unique validation. For example, consider an "update profile" screen that includes the user's name, email address, and location. You will probably want to verify that the email address is unique. However, if the user only changes the name field and not the email field, you do not want a validation error to be thrown because the user is already the owner of the email address in question.

To instruct the validator to ignore the user's ID, we'll use the Rule class to fluently define the rule. In this example, we'll also specify the validation rules as an array instead of using the | character to delimit the rules:

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Validator;
use Illuminate\Validation\Rule;

Validator::make($data, [
    'email' => [
        'required',
        Rule::unique('users')->ignore($user->id),
    ],
]);

warning Warning!
You should never pass any user controlled request input into the ignore method. Instead, you should only pass a system generated unique ID such as an auto-incrementing ID or UUID from an Eloquent model instance. Otherwise, your application will be vulnerable to an SQL injection attack.

Instead of passing the model key's value to the ignore method, you may also pass the entire model instance. Laravel will automatically extract the key from the model:

Rule::unique('users')->ignore($user)

If your table uses a primary key column name other than id, you may specify the name of the column when calling the ignore method:

Rule::unique('users')->ignore($user->id, 'user_id')

By default, the unique rule will check the uniqueness of the column matching the name of the attribute being validated. However, you may pass a different column name as the second argument to the unique method:

Rule::unique('users', 'email_address')->ignore($user->id)

Adding Additional Where Clauses:

You may specify additional query conditions by customizing the query using the where method. For example, let's add a query condition that scopes the query to only search records that have an account_id column value of 1:

'email' => Rule::unique('users')->where(fn (Builder $query) => $query->where('account_id', 1))

uppercase

The field under validation must be uppercase.

url

The field under validation must be a valid URL.

If you would like to specify the URL protocols that should be considered valid, you may pass the protocols as validation rule parameters:

'url' => 'url:http,https',

'game' => 'url:minecraft,steam',

ulid

The field under validation must be a valid Universally Unique Lexicographically Sortable Identifier (ULID).

uuid

The field under validation must be a valid RFC 4122 (version 1, 3, 4, or 5) universally unique identifier (UUID).

Conditionally Adding Rules

Skipping Validation When Fields Have Certain Values

You may occasionally wish to not validate a given field if another field has a given value. You may accomplish this using the exclude_if validation rule. In this example, the appointment_date and doctor_name fields will not be validated if the has_appointment field has a value of false:

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Validator;

$validator = Validator::make($data, [
    'has_appointment' => 'required|boolean',
    'appointment_date' => 'exclude_if:has_appointment,false|required|date',
    'doctor_name' => 'exclude_if:has_appointment,false|required|string',
]);

Alternatively, you may use the exclude_unless rule to not validate a given field unless another field has a given value:

$validator = Validator::make($data, [
    'has_appointment' => 'required|boolean',
    'appointment_date' => 'exclude_unless:has_appointment,true|required|date',
    'doctor_name' => 'exclude_unless:has_appointment,true|required|string',
]);

Validating When Present

In some situations, you may wish to run validation checks against a field only if that field is present in the data being validated. To quickly accomplish this, add the sometimes rule to your rule list:

$validator = Validator::make($data, [
    'email' => 'sometimes|required|email',
]);

In the example above, the email field will only be validated if it is present in the $data array.

lightbulb Note:
If you are attempting to validate a field that should always be present but may be empty, check out this note on optional fields.

Complex Conditional Validation

Sometimes you may wish to add validation rules based on more complex conditional logic. For example, you may wish to require a given field only if another field has a greater value than 100. Or, you may need two fields to have a given value only when another field is present. Adding these validation rules doesn't have to be a pain. First, create a Validator instance with your static rules that never change:

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Validator;

$validator = Validator::make($request->all(), [
    'email' => 'required|email',
    'games' => 'required|numeric',
]);

Let's assume our web application is for game collectors. If a game collector registers with our application and they own more than 100 games, we want them to explain why they own so many games. For example, perhaps they run a game resale shop, or maybe they just enjoy collecting games. To conditionally add this requirement, we can use the sometimes method on the Validator instance.

use Illuminate\Support\Fluent;

$validator->sometimes('reason', 'required|max:500', function (Fluent $input) {
    return $input->games >= 100;
});

The first argument passed to the sometimes method is the name of the field we are conditionally validating. The second argument is a list of the rules we want to add. If the closure passed as the third argument returns true, the rules will be added. This method makes it a breeze to build complex conditional validations. You may even add conditional validations for several fields at once:

$validator->sometimes(['reason', 'cost'], 'required', function (Fluent $input) {
    return $input->games >= 100;
});

lightbulb Note:
The $input parameter passed to your closure will be an instance of Illuminate\Support\Fluent and may be used to access your input and files under validation.

Complex Conditional Array Validation

Sometimes you may want to validate a field based on another field in the same nested array whose index you do not know. In these situations, you may allow your closure to receive a second argument which will be the current individual item in the array being validated:

$input = [
    'channels' => [
        [
            'type' => 'email',
            'address' => 'abigail@example.com',
        ],
        [
            'type' => 'url',
            'address' => 'https://example.com',
        ],
    ],
];

$validator->sometimes('channels.*.address', 'email', function (Fluent $input, Fluent $item) {
    return $item->type === 'email';
});

$validator->sometimes('channels.*.address', 'url', function (Fluent $input, Fluent $item) {
    return $item->type !== 'email';
});

Like the $input parameter passed to the closure, the $item parameter is an instance of Illuminate\Support\Fluent when the attribute data is an array; otherwise, it is a string.

Validating Arrays

As discussed in the array validation rule documentation, the array rule accepts a list of allowed array keys. If any additional keys are present within the array, validation will fail:

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Validator;

$input = [
    'user' => [
        'name' => 'Taylor Otwell',
        'username' => 'taylorotwell',
        'admin' => true,
    ],
];

Validator::make($input, [
    'user' => 'array:name,username',
]);

In general, you should always specify the array keys that are allowed to be present within your array. Otherwise, the validator's validate and validated methods will return all of the validated data, including the array and all of its keys, even if those keys were not validated by other nested array validation rules.

Validating Nested Array Input

Validating nested array based form input fields doesn't have to be a pain. You may use "dot notation" to validate attributes within an array. For example, if the incoming HTTP request contains a photos[profile] field, you may validate it like so:

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Validator;

$validator = Validator::make($request->all(), [
    'photos.profile' => 'required|image',
]);

You may also validate each element of an array. For example, to validate that each email in a given array input field is unique, you may do the following:

$validator = Validator::make($request->all(), [
    'person.*.email' => 'email|unique:users',
    'person.*.first_name' => 'required_with:person.*.last_name',
]);

Likewise, you may use the * character when specifying custom validation messages in your language files, making it a breeze to use a single validation message for array based fields:

'custom' => [
    'person.*.email' => [
        'unique' => 'Each person must have a unique email address',
    ]
],

Accessing Nested Array Data

Sometimes you may need to access the value for a given nested array element when assigning validation rules to the attribute. You may accomplish this using the Rule::forEach method. The forEach method accepts a closure that will be invoked for each iteration of the array attribute under validation and will receive the attribute's value and explicit, fully-expanded attribute name. The closure should return an array of rules to assign to the array element:

use App\Rules\HasPermission;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Validator;
use Illuminate\Validation\Rule;

$validator = Validator::make($request->all(), [
    'companies.*.id' => Rule::forEach(function (string|null $value, string $attribute) {
        return [
            Rule::exists(Company::class, 'id'),
            new HasPermission('manage-company', $value),
        ];
    }),
]);

Error Message Indexes and Positions

When validating arrays, you may want to reference the index or position of a particular item that failed validation within the error message displayed by your application. To accomplish this, you may include the :index (starts from 0) and :position (starts from 1) placeholders within your custom validation message:

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Validator;

$input = [
    'photos' => [
        [
            'name' => 'BeachVacation.jpg',
            'description' => 'A photo of my beach vacation!',
        ],
        [
            'name' => 'GrandCanyon.jpg',
            'description' => '',
        ],
    ],
];

Validator::validate($input, [
    'photos.*.description' => 'required',
], [
    'photos.*.description.required' => 'Please describe photo #:position.',
]);

Given the example above, validation will fail and the user will be presented with the following error of "Please describe photo #2."

If necessary, you may reference more deeply nested indexes and positions via second-index, second-position, third-index, third-position, etc.

'photos.*.attributes.*.string' => 'Invalid attribute for photo #:second-position.',

Validating Files

Laravel provides a variety of validation rules that may be used to validate uploaded files, such as mimes, image, min, and max. While you are free to specify these rules individually when validating files, Laravel also offers a fluent file validation rule builder that you may find convenient:

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Validator;
use Illuminate\Validation\Rules\File;

Validator::validate($input, [
    'attachment' => [
        'required',
        File::types(['mp3', 'wav'])
            ->min(1024)
            ->max(12 * 1024),
    ],
]);

If your application accepts images uploaded by your users, you may use the File rule's image constructor method to indicate that the uploaded file should be an image. In addition, the dimensions rule may be used to limit the dimensions of the image:

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Validator;
use Illuminate\Validation\Rule;
use Illuminate\Validation\Rules\File;

Validator::validate($input, [
    'photo' => [
        'required',
        File::image()
            ->min(1024)
            ->max(12 * 1024)
            ->dimensions(Rule::dimensions()->maxWidth(1000)->maxHeight(500)),
    ],
]);

lightbulb Note:
More information regarding validating image dimensions may be found in the dimension rule documentation.

File Sizes

For convenience, minimum and maximum file sizes may be specified as a string with a suffix indicating the file size units. The kb, mb, gb, and tb suffixes are supported:

File::image()
    ->min('1kb')
    ->max('10mb')

File Types

Even though you only need to specify the extensions when invoking the types method, this method actually validates the MIME type of the file by reading the file's contents and guessing its MIME type. A full listing of MIME types and their corresponding extensions may be found at the following location:

https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/httpd/httpd/trunk/docs/conf/mime.types

Validating Passwords

To ensure that passwords have an adequate level of complexity, you may use Laravel's Password rule object:

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Validator;
use Illuminate\Validation\Rules\Password;

$validator = Validator::make($request->all(), [
    'password' => ['required', 'confirmed', Password::min(8)],
]);

The Password rule object allows you to easily customize the password complexity requirements for your application, such as specifying that passwords require at least one letter, number, symbol, or characters with mixed casing:

// Require at least 8 characters...
Password::min(8)

// Require at least one letter...
Password::min(8)->letters()

// Require at least one uppercase and one lowercase letter...
Password::min(8)->mixedCase()

// Require at least one number...
Password::min(8)->numbers()

// Require at least one symbol...
Password::min(8)->symbols()

In addition, you may ensure that a password has not been compromised in a public password data breach leak using the uncompromised method:

Password::min(8)->uncompromised()

Internally, the Password rule object uses the k-Anonymity model to determine if a password has been leaked via the haveibeenpwned.com service without sacrificing the user's privacy or security.

By default, if a password appears at least once in a data leak, it will be considered compromised. You can customize this threshold using the first argument of the uncompromised method:

// Ensure the password appears less than 3 times in the same data leak...
Password::min(8)->uncompromised(3);

Of course, you may chain all the methods in the examples above:

Password::min(8)
    ->letters()
    ->mixedCase()
    ->numbers()
    ->symbols()
    ->uncompromised()

Defining Default Password Rules

You may find it convenient to specify the default validation rules for passwords in a single location of your application. You can easily accomplish this using the Password::defaults method, which accepts a closure. The closure given to the defaults method should return the default configuration of the Password rule. Typically, the defaults rule should be called within the boot method of one of your application's service providers:

use Illuminate\Validation\Rules\Password;

/**
 * Bootstrap any application services.
 */
public function boot(): void
{
    Password::defaults(function () {
        $rule = Password::min(8);

        return $this->app->isProduction()
                    ? $rule->mixedCase()->uncompromised()
                    : $rule;
    });
}

Then, when you would like to apply the default rules to a particular password undergoing validation, you may invoke the defaults method with no arguments:

'password' => ['required', Password::defaults()],

Occasionally, you may want to attach additional validation rules to your default password validation rules. You may use the rules method to accomplish this:

use App\Rules\ZxcvbnRule;

Password::defaults(function () {
    $rule = Password::min(8)->rules([new ZxcvbnRule]);

    // ...
});

Custom Validation Rules

Using Rule Objects

Laravel provides a variety of helpful validation rules; however, you may wish to specify some of your own. One method of registering custom validation rules is using rule objects. To generate a new rule object, you may use the make:rule Artisan command. Let's use this command to generate a rule that verifies a string is uppercase. Laravel will place the new rule in the app/Rules directory. If this directory does not exist, Laravel will create it when you execute the Artisan command to create your rule:

php artisan make:rule Uppercase

Once the rule has been created, we are ready to define its behavior. A rule object contains a single method: validate. This method receives the attribute name, its value, and a callback that should be invoked on failure with the validation error message:

<?php

namespace App\Rules;

use Closure;
use Illuminate\Contracts\Validation\ValidationRule;

class Uppercase implements ValidationRule
{
    /**
     * Run the validation rule.
     */
    public function validate(string $attribute, mixed $value, Closure $fail): void
    {
        if (strtoupper($value) !== $value) {
            $fail('The :attribute must be uppercase.');
        }
    }
}

Once the rule has been defined, you may attach it to a validator by passing an instance of the rule object with your other validation rules:

use App\Rules\Uppercase;

$request->validate([
    'name' => ['required', 'string', new Uppercase],
]);

Translating Validation Messages

Instead of providing a literal error message to the $fail closure, you may also provide a translation string key and instruct Laravel to translate the error message:

if (strtoupper($value) !== $value) {
    $fail('validation.uppercase')->translate();
}

If necessary, you may provide placeholder replacements and the preferred language as the first and second arguments to the translate method:

$fail('validation.location')->translate([
    'value' => $this->value,
], 'fr')

Accessing Additional Data

If your custom validation rule class needs to access all of the other data undergoing validation, your rule class may implement the Illuminate\Contracts\Validation\DataAwareRule interface. This interface requires your class to define a setData method. This method will automatically be invoked by Laravel (before validation proceeds) with all of the data under validation:

<?php

namespace App\Rules;

use Illuminate\Contracts\Validation\DataAwareRule;
use Illuminate\Contracts\Validation\ValidationRule;

class Uppercase implements DataAwareRule, ValidationRule
{
    /**
     * All of the data under validation.
     *
     * @var array<string, mixed>
     */
    protected $data = [];

    // ...

    /**
     * Set the data under validation.
     *
     * @param  array<string, mixed>  $data
     */
    public function setData(array $data): static
    {
        $this->data = $data;

        return $this;
    }
}

Or, if your validation rule requires access to the validator instance performing the validation, you may implement the ValidatorAwareRule interface:

<?php

namespace App\Rules;

use Illuminate\Contracts\Validation\ValidationRule;
use Illuminate\Contracts\Validation\ValidatorAwareRule;
use Illuminate\Validation\Validator;

class Uppercase implements ValidationRule, ValidatorAwareRule
{
    /**
     * The validator instance.
     *
     * @var \Illuminate\Validation\Validator
     */
    protected $validator;

    // ...

    /**
     * Set the current validator.
     */
    public function setValidator(Validator $validator): static
    {
        $this->validator = $validator;

        return $this;
    }
}

Using Closures

If you only need the functionality of a custom rule once throughout your application, you may use a closure instead of a rule object. The closure receives the attribute's name, the attribute's value, and a $fail callback that should be called if validation fails:

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Validator;
use Closure;

$validator = Validator::make($request->all(), [
    'title' => [
        'required',
        'max:255',
        function (string $attribute, mixed $value, Closure $fail) {
            if ($value === 'foo') {
                $fail("The {$attribute} is invalid.");
            }
        },
    ],
]);

Implicit Rules

By default, when an attribute being validated is not present or contains an empty string, normal validation rules, including custom rules, are not run. For example, the unique rule will not be run against an empty string:

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Validator;

$rules = ['name' => 'unique:users,name'];

$input = ['name' => ''];

Validator::make($input, $rules)->passes(); // true

For a custom rule to run even when an attribute is empty, the rule must imply that the attribute is required. To quickly generate a new implicit rule object, you may use the make:rule Artisan command with the --implicit option:

php artisan make:rule Uppercase --implicit

warning Warning!
An "implicit" rule only implies that the attribute is required. Whether it actually invalidates a missing or empty attribute is up to you.