Laravel 5.7 Validation Rules

Question

When I submit a form, this is what I do to validate my fields...

<?php

$this->validate($request, [
    'name' => __('required|max:255|unique:templates,name,NULL,id,company_id,:company_id', [
        'company_id' => $request->input('companies')
    ]),
    'modules' => 'required|numeric',
    'companies' => 'required|numeric',
    'start_date' => 'required_with:limited_availability|date|before:end_date',
    'end_date' => 'required_with:limited_availability|date|after:start_date',
    'indesign_location' => __('required|file|mimetypes:application/zip|max::max_upload_size', [
        'max_upload_size' => config('file.max_size')
    ])
]);

What I want to achieve: The fields start_date and end_date should only be required (and therefore be validated) when the field limited_availability is present.

What happens now: I don't get the message that the field is required, but I do get an error message on both date fields that the specified date is invalid.

The limited_availability is a checkbox and both start_date and end_date are date input fields.

How can I fix this problem?

Answer 1

May be this is a naive solution. But I am pretty sure this will works.

// First thing we separate the validation rule and save it in a variable
$rules = [
    'name'                 => __( 'required|max:255|unique:templates,name,NULL,id,company_id,:company_id', [
        'company_id' => $request->input( 'companies' )
    ] ),
    'modules'              => 'required|numeric',
    'companies'            => 'required|numeric',
    'indesign_location'    => __( 'required|file|mimetypes:application/zip|max::max_upload_size', [
        'max_upload_size' => config( 'file.max_size' )
    ] )
];

// the solution is here
if ($request->has('limited_availability')) {
    $rules['start_date'] = 'required|date|before:end_date';
    $rules['end_date']   = 'require|date|after:start_date';
}

$this->validate( $request, $rules);

Hope it helps.