Laravel sometimes vs sometimes|required
From the docs:
In some situations, you may wish to run validation checks against a field only if that field is present in the input array. To quickly accomplish this, add the sometimes rule to your rule list
https://laravel.com/docs/5.2/validation#conditionally-adding-rules
If I could simplify it, I would say sometimes
means, only apply the rest of the validation rules if the field shows up in the request. Imagine sometimes
is like an if statement that checks if the field is present in the request/input before applying any of the rules.
I use this rule when I have some javascript on a page that will disable a field, as when a field is disabled it won't show up in the request. If I simply said required|email
the validator is always going to apply the rules whereas using the sometimes
rule will only apply the validation if the field shows up in the request! Hope that makes sense.
Examples:
input: []
rules: ['email' => 'sometimes|required|email']
result: pass, the request is empty so sometimes won't apply any of the rules
input: ['email' => '']
rules: ['email' => 'sometimes|required|email']
result: fail, the field is present so the required rule fails!
input: []
rules: ['email' => 'required|email']
result: fail, the request is empty and we require the email field!
alex
MSC in software engineering. interested in OWL ontology & semantic web
Updated on July 14, 2022Comments
-
alex almost 2 years
What is the difference between
sometimes|required|email
andsometimes|email
in Laravel validation?I've read this discussion from laracasts but still it is ambiguous for me -
alex about 8 yearsthanks. as i understand
sometimes
refers to POST key andrequire
refers to its value.so if a field is required both key and value should be present in POST .am i right? -
haakym about 8 yearsYou could actually apply the validation process to any old array actually and it could therefore be
POST
orGET
. And yes, that's actually a good way of explaining it. You can of course combine thesometimes
andrequired
rule. If you want further details of how it works in the framework you can always check the source: github.com/laravel/framework/blob/5.2/src/Illuminate/Validation/… and the tests: github.com/laravel/framework/blob/5.2/tests/Validation/…