Laravel API is receiving string between quotes written "null" instead of a null field

Question

I am building a form with FormData for sending a file along with other information to a Laravel API, but the file might be null, according to the rule:

$validator = Validator::make(Request::all(), [
    ...
    "file" => "nullable|mimes:pdf,doc,docx"
]);

And from the front-end, the FormData being sent:

const data = new FormData();

data.append("name", name);
data.append("instructions", instructions);
data.append("reward", reward);
data.append("deadline", deadline);
data.append("file", file ? file[0] : null);

file has a default value of null, but when I check the logs of Request::all(), I see the following:

[2018-08-18 06:55:13] local.INFO: array (
  ..
  'file' => 'null',
) 

Answer 1

Your file looks like an array so what you can do is check if it is an array if yes then assign file[0] otherwise assign file

const data = new FormData();
let fileData = file;
if(Array.isArray(file)){
    fileData = file[0]; 
}else{
    fileData = file
}
data.append("name", name);
data.append("instructions", instructions);
data.append("reward", reward);
data.append("deadline", deadline);
data.append("file", fileData);

OR

data.append("name", name);
data.append("instructions", instructions);
data.append("reward", reward);
data.append("deadline", deadline);
data.append("file", Array.isArray(file) ? file[0] : file);