Laravel Request Validation

Last modified on: September 4, 2025

<h1 data-start="122" data-end="173">🛠️ Laravel Request Validation &ndash; Complete Guide</h1>
<p data-start="175" data-end="398">Validation is one of the most important parts of web applications. Laravel makes validation <strong data-start="267" data-end="301">simple, expressive, and secure</strong>. You can validate requests using either the <strong data-start="346" data-end="367">controller method</strong> or a <strong data-start="373" data-end="395">Form Request class</strong>.</p>
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<h2 data-start="405" data-end="446">🔹 1. Basic Validation in Controller</h2>
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<pre class="language-php"><code>public function store(Request $request)
{
    $request-&gt;validate([
        'name' =&gt; 'required|min:3|max:50',
        'email' =&gt; 'required|email|unique:users',
        'password' =&gt; 'required|min:8|confirmed',
    ]);

// If validation passes, proceed
    // User::create($request-&gt;all());

return back()-&gt;with('success', 'User created successfully!');
}
</code></pre>
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<p data-start="823" data-end="848">✔️ If validation fails:</p>
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<p data-start="851" data-end="891">User is redirected back automatically.</p>
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<li data-start="892" data-end="932">
<p data-start="894" data-end="932">Old input is flashed to the session.</p>
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<li data-start="933" data-end="979">
<p data-start="935" data-end="979">Error messages are available in <code data-start="967" data-end="976">$errors</code>.</p>
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</ul>
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<h2 data-start="986" data-end="1023">🔹 2. Displaying Errors in Blade</h2>
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<pre class="language-php"><code>&lt;form action="{{ route('register') }}" method="POST"&gt;
    @csrf
    &lt;input type="text" name="name" value="{{ old('name') }}"&gt;
    @error('name') &lt;p style="color:red"&gt;{{ $message }}&lt;/p&gt; @enderror

&lt;input type="email" name="email" value="{{ old('email') }}"&gt;
    @error('email') &lt;p style="color:red"&gt;{{ $message }}&lt;/p&gt; @enderror

&lt;input type="password" name="password"&gt;
    &lt;input type="password" name="password_confirmation"&gt;

&lt;button type="submit"&gt;Register&lt;/button&gt;
&lt;/form&gt;</code></pre>
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<h2 data-start="1530" data-end="1564">🔹 3. Common Validation Rules</h2>
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<thead data-start="1566" data-end="1660">
<tr data-start="1566" data-end="1660">
<th data-start="1566" data-end="1584" data-col-size="sm">Rule</th>
<th data-start="1584" data-end="1629" data-col-size="sm">Description</th>
<th data-start="1629" data-end="1660" data-col-size="sm">Example</th>
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<td data-start="1756" data-end="1774" data-col-size="sm"><code data-start="1758" data-end="1768">required</code></td>
<td data-start="1774" data-end="1819" data-col-size="sm">Field must not be empty</td>
<td data-start="1819" data-end="1850" data-col-size="sm"><code data-start="1821" data-end="1843">'name' =&gt; 'required'</code></td>
</tr>
<tr data-start="1851" data-end="1945">
<td data-start="1851" data-end="1869" data-col-size="sm"><code data-start="1853" data-end="1860">email</code></td>
<td data-start="1869" data-end="1914" data-col-size="sm">Must be a valid email</td>
<td data-start="1914" data-end="1945" data-col-size="sm"><code data-start="1916" data-end="1936">'email' =&gt; 'email'</code></td>
</tr>
<tr data-start="1946" data-end="2040">
<td data-start="1946" data-end="1964" data-col-size="sm"><code data-start="1948" data-end="1957">min:max</code></td>
<td data-start="1964" data-end="2009" data-col-size="sm">Minimum/maximum length or value</td>
<td data-start="2009" data-end="2040" data-col-size="sm"><code data-start="2011" data-end="2034">'password' =&gt; 'min:8'</code></td>
</tr>
<tr data-start="2041" data-end="2136">
<td data-start="2041" data-end="2059" data-col-size="sm"><code data-start="2043" data-end="2054">confirmed</code></td>
<td data-start="2059" data-end="2105" data-col-size="sm">Matches with <code data-start="2074" data-end="2089">_confirmation</code> field</td>
<td data-start="2105" data-end="2136" data-col-size="sm"><code data-start="2107" data-end="2134">'password' =&gt; 'confirmed'</code></td>
</tr>
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<td data-start="2137" data-end="2155" data-col-size="sm"><code data-start="2139" data-end="2153">unique:table</code></td>
<td data-start="2155" data-end="2200" data-col-size="sm">Must be unique in a DB table</td>
<td data-start="2200" data-end="2231" data-col-size="sm"><code data-start="2202" data-end="2229">'email' =&gt; 'unique:users'</code></td>
</tr>
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<td data-start="2232" data-end="2250" data-col-size="sm"><code data-start="2234" data-end="2241">regex</code></td>
<td data-start="2250" data-end="2295" data-col-size="sm">Match a regex pattern</td>
<td data-start="2295" data-end="2333" data-col-size="sm"><code data-start="2297" data-end="2331">'phone' =&gt; 'regex:/^[0-9]{10}$/'</code></td>
</tr>
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<td data-start="2334" data-end="2352" data-col-size="sm"><code data-start="2336" data-end="2342">date</code></td>
<td data-start="2352" data-end="2397" data-col-size="sm">Must be a valid date</td>
<td data-start="2397" data-end="2428" data-col-size="sm"><code data-start="2399" data-end="2416">'dob' =&gt; 'date'</code></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
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<h2 data-start="2435" data-end="2467">🔹 4. Custom Error Messages</h2>
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<pre class="language-php"><code>$request-&gt;validate([
    'name' =&gt; 'required|min:3',
    'email' =&gt; 'required|email',
], [
    'name.required' =&gt; 'Please enter your full name.',
    'email.email' =&gt; 'Enter a valid email address.',
]);</code></pre>
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<h2 data-start="2689" data-end="2723">🔹 5. Validating File Uploads</h2>
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<pre class="language-php"><code>$request-&gt;validate([
    'profile' =&gt; 'required|mimes:jpg,png|max:2048',
]);</code></pre>
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<p data-start="2814" data-end="2835">✔️ Rules explained:</p>
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<p data-start="2838" data-end="2881"><code data-start="2838" data-end="2853">mimes:jpg,png</code> &rarr; only JPG and PNG files.</p>
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<li data-start="2882" data-end="2916">
<p data-start="2884" data-end="2916"><code data-start="2884" data-end="2894">max:2048</code> &rarr; maximum size 2MB.</p>
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<h2 data-start="2923" data-end="2971">🔹 6. Form Request Validation (Cleaner Way)</h2>
<p data-start="2973" data-end="3059">Instead of writing validation rules in controllers, create a <strong data-start="3034" data-end="3056">Form Request class</strong>.</p>
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<pre class="language-php"><code>php artisan make:request StoreUserRequest</code></pre>
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<p data-start="3116" data-end="3133">Generated file:</p>
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<pre class="language-php"><code>namespace App\Http\Requests;

use Illuminate\Foundation\Http\FormRequest;

class StoreUserRequest extends FormRequest
{
    public function rules()
    {
        return [
            'name' =&gt; 'required|min:3|max:50',
            'email' =&gt; 'required|email|unique:users',
            'password' =&gt; 'required|min:8|confirmed',
        ];
    }
}</code></pre>
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<p data-start="3492" data-end="3505">Controller:</p>
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<pre class="language-php"><code>public function store(StoreUserRequest $request)
{
    // Validation runs automatically
    // If successful:
    User::create($request-&gt;validated());

return redirect()-&gt;back()-&gt;with('success', 'User created!');
}</code></pre>
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<h2 data-start="3743" data-end="3793">🔹 7. Handling Validation Errors in JSON APIs</h2>
<p data-start="3795" data-end="3901">If you&rsquo;re building an API, Laravel automatically returns a <strong data-start="3854" data-end="3873">422 status code</strong> with JSON error messages.</p>
<p data-start="3903" data-end="3939">Example request with invalid data:</p>
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<pre class="language-php"><code>{
  "message": "The given data was invalid.",
  "errors": {
    "email": ["The email field is required."]
  }
}</code></pre>
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<h2 data-start="4071" data-end="4096">🔹 8. Best Practices</h2>
<p data-start="4098" data-end="4379">✅ Always validate user input (never trust client-side data).<br data-start="4158" data-end="4161" />✅ Use <strong data-start="4167" data-end="4184">Form Requests</strong> for clean and reusable validation.<br data-start="4219" data-end="4222" />✅ Customize error messages for better UX.<br data-start="4263" data-end="4266" />✅ Use <code data-start="4272" data-end="4278">bail</code> rule to stop validation on first failure.<br data-start="4320" data-end="4323" />✅ Keep validation logic consistent across web and API.</p>
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<h2 data-start="4386" data-end="4410">📌 Example Workflow</h2>
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<p data-start="4415" data-end="4437">User submits a form.</p>
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<p data-start="4441" data-end="4473">Laravel checks <strong data-start="4456" data-end="4470">CSRF token</strong>.</p>
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<li data-start="4474" data-end="4500">
<p data-start="4477" data-end="4500">Validation rules run.</p>
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<p data-start="4504" data-end="4568">If validation fails &rarr; redirect back (web) / return JSON (API).</p>
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<li data-start="4569" data-end="4635">
<p data-start="4572" data-end="4635">If validation passes &rarr; continue processing (DB insert, etc.).</p>
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</ol>

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