Why is validate() method accessible via request()?

Question

Quoting the Laravel documentation:

By default, Laravel's base controller class uses a ValidatesRequests trait which provides a convenient method to validate incoming HTTP request with a variety of powerful validation rules

It's true, reading the code, App\Http\Controllers\Controller actually uses ValidatesRequests trait. And ValidatesRequests has a validate method.

What is really strange for me is that everywhere else in the documentation, the validate method is called on $request object. And it works this way. I can validate a form with this code:

public function store()
{
    $attributes = request()->validate([
        'name' => 'required|string|max:255',
    ]);
    // ...
}

But I don't see any presence of a validate method on the Request class. Just a strange comment line at the beginning of the file:

/**
 * @method array validate(array $rules, array $messages = [], array $customAttributes = [])
 */

So there are two things:

• I don't know what to trust in Laravel documentation.
• And I don't understand how the validation works on the $request object.

And my actual question is:

Is the initial quote I pasted from the documentation still true if I use the validate method through $request object? If so, how does it works?

Answer 1

That "strange comment" was removed a couple days ago.

I believe Request gets its validate function from the Request::macro('validate', ...) call in FoundationServiceProvider.php. See this article for more on macros.