- Step 1: Create a Form Request Class
- Step 2: Define the Validation Rules
- Step 3: Define Custom Validation Messages
- Step 4: Use the Form Request in Your Controller
When building a Laravel application, form requests are a great way to validate user input before it is processed by your application. However, the default validation error messages can be a bit generic and may not provide enough context for the user to understand what went wrong. In this post, we'll show you how to add custom validation messages to your Laravel form requests to provide more descriptive error messages.
By default, Laravel provides helpful validation messages for each type of validation rule. However, you may need to customize these messages to fit the specific needs of your application or to provide more descriptive error messages to your users. In this post, we'll walk through how to add custom validation messages to your Form Requests.
This will generate a new file MyFormRequest.php in the app/Http/Requests directory. Open the file and you'll see a rules() method that returns an array of validation rules. For example:
First, let's create a form request class that will handle our validation logic. You can generate a new form request class using the Artisan command:
php artisan make:request CreateUserRequest
Step 1: Create a Form Request
First, let's create a new Form Request using the Artisan command:
public function rules()
{
return [
'name' => 'required|string|max:255',
'email' => 'required|email|unique:users|max:255',
'phone' => 'required|string|max:20|unique:users',
'gender' => 'required|in:male,female',
'type' => 'required|in:admin,user',
];
}
Step 2: Add Custom Validation Messages
To add custom validation messages, we can override the messages() method in our Form Request. This method should return an array of validation messages keyed by the field name and rule name. For example:
public function messages()
{
return [
'name.required' => 'The name field is required.',
'name.string' => 'The name field must be a string.',
'name.max' => 'The name field may not be greater than :max characters.',
'email.required' => 'The email field is required.',
'email.email' => 'The email field must be a valid email address.',
'email.unique' => 'The email address is already in use.',
'email.max' => 'The email field may not be greater than :max characters.',
'phone.required' => 'The phone field is required.',
'phone.string' => 'The phone field must be a string.',
'phone.max' => 'The phone field may not be greater than :max characters.',
'phone.unique' => 'The phone number is already in use.',
'gender.required' => 'The gender field is required.',
'gender.in' => 'The selected gender is invalid.',
'type.required' => 'The type field is required.',
'type.in' => 'The selected type is invalid.',
];
}
This will generate a new file MyFormRequest.php in the app/Http/Requests directory. Open the file and you'll see a rules() method that returns an array of validation rules. For example:
public function store(CreateUserRequest $request)
{
// Your controller logic here
}
In this example, we've added custom validation messages for the name, email, and password fields.
Note that you can use placeholders in your messages, such as :min or :max, to dynamically insert the value of the validation rule.
Step 3: Use Your Form Request
Finally, we need to use our Form Request to validate incoming form data. In your controller, type hint the Form Request in your method signature. For example:
Now, when the form data is submitted and fails validation, Laravel will automatically redirect the user back to the previous page with the validation errors and our custom messages.
By default, Laravel provides default validation messages for each validation rule. For example, the required rule has the following default message:
The :attribute field is required.
public function messages()
{
return [
'required' => 'The :attribute field is required. Please fill it in.',
];
}
To add a custom validation message for a specific rule, you can override the messages() method in your Form Request. For example, to add a custom message for the required rule, you might do the following:
Conclusion
In this post, we've seen how to add custom validation messages to Laravel Form Requests. By providing clear and descriptive error messages, you can improve the user experience and ensure that data is submitted accurately.
