How to validate array fields?

The email validation rule, like nearly all the built-in rules, is available in Laravel's Illuminate\Validation\Validator class (in 4.2 at least). Looking at the specific method, it looks like this:

/**
  * Validate that an attribute is a valid e-mail address.
  *
  * @param string $attribute
  * @param mixed $value
  * @return bool
  */
 protected function validateEmail($attribute, $value)
 {
  return filter_var($value, FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL) !== false;
 }

As you can see, it's simply a convenience method for the filter_var PHP method. One simple solution then would be to create a custom validation rule something like this:

Validator::extend('isArrayOfEmails', function($attribute, $value, $parameters)
{
    // define closure separately for readability
    $checkEmails = function($carry, $email){
        return $carry && filter_var($email, FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL) !== false;
    };
    // validate that the value given is an array of valid email addresses
    return (is_array($attribute) and array_reduce($values,$checkEmails,true));
});

minor edit: corrected Laravel version to 4.2 in first para.

I need some answer on this. As this is now my current problem. Can't find any solution on the net right now. Why is it so hard with array form element ?

What was wrong with the solution @anaxamaxan posted? Custom validation rules would be the way to go here.

I have the same problem but I noticed there is an each() method in the Validator class on line 221: https://github.com/laravel/framework/blob/4.2/src/Illuminate/Validation/Validator.php

Not sure how to get this to work though, I've tried:

roles' => 'array|each|exists:roles,id'

But that doesn't work..

@WookieMonster

I do something like this:

$v = \Validator::make(Input::all(), $rules);

$v->each('email-address', ['required', 'email']);

if ($v->fails()) {
    // Throw exception
}

And with dot notation like this :

'email-address.0' => 'email',
'email-address.1' => 'email',

The issue is that you don't know how many email addresses user will submit, like when you have a edit page where user can add 1 or many email addresses.

@gavrisimo with the each method it works fine for any addresses number.

Each is cool but not suited to FormRequest as the validator instance is not usable from the rule method.

@pmall just to create a validator method in form request :

public function validator($factory)
{ 
  $v = $factory->make($this->all(), $this->rules()); 
  $v->each('email-address', ['required', 'email']);
  return $v;
}

It looses its charm

On L5 I've made some tests and if I use array input like :

<input type="text" name="email-address[]" />
<input type="text" name="email-address[]" />

And use this rule :

return ['email-address' => 'email'];

I dont get "htmlentities() expects parameter 1 to be string, array given." but casual validation with "The email-address must be a valid email address." as error.

@bestmomo Lets say I want to add many users that have name, email, etc. So my input data are :

['users' => [
    'name' => 'username1',
    'email' => 'email1',
  ],
  [
    'name' => 'username2',
    'email' => 'email2',
]];

I cant figure out how to apply your method on this ?

@pmall it would but seems that array_get doesn't work with 3 levels of keys so validation breaks.

@bestmomo you cant even write the rules. What would it be ? 'users.name' => 'required' won't work even if array_get could handle 3 levels of keys.

@pmall would work with something like this :

public function validator($factory)
{ 
  $v = $factory->make($this->all(), $this->rules());
  $users = $this->get('users');
  for($i = 0; $i < count($users); ++$i) {
        $v->mergeRules('users.' . $i . '.name', ['required']);
        $v->mergeRules('users.' . $i . '.email', ['email']);
  }
  return $v;
}

don't know about L4.2, but in L5 array validation is broken when injected FormRequest validation so I do file array uploads manually.

foreach ($allFiles as $file) {
    $validator = Validator::make(
        array('file' => $file),
        array('file' => 'required|mimes:jpeg,png|image|max:1000')
    );

    if ($validator->passes()) 
   {
        // Do something
    } else {
        // Collect error messages
        $error_messages[] = 'File "' . $upload->getClientOriginalName() . '":' .$validator->messages()->first('file');
    }
}

 Redirect, return JSON, whatever...

return $error_messages;
// add an conditional statement ... etc. 
    } else {
    // No files have been uploaded//
}

I assume email would be the same

foreach ($allEmails as $email) {

    $validator = Validator::make(
        array('email' => $email),
        array('email' => 'required | email')
    );

    if ($validator->passes()) 
    {
        // Do something
    } else {
        // Collect error messages
       $error_messages[] = 'email'. $email. blah blah some sort of error message
    }
}

Redirect, return JSON, whatever...
return $error_messages;

some sort of condition to return a better error message 
    } else {
    // No emails have been uploaded//
}

With form requests, you define a rules() method to return the set of validation rules, correct? In that case, wouldn't it be easy to check the number of submitted emails and add a rule for each? Something like:

function rules()
{
    $rules = $this->rules;
    $numEmails = count( $this->get('email') );
    foreach( range(0, $numEmails), as $index) {
        $rules['email.' . $index] = 'email';
    }
    return $rules;
}

@bestmomo @thepsion5 Yes it's what I do but it quickly become ugly. I have form with three levels of nesting.

@pmall what about this pack ?

Thanks @bestmomo but Im not looking for a solution Im just complaining that laravel validator doesn't handle this out of the box :p

@pmall I agree

I know its an old topic but this package https://github.com/KaneCohen/laravel-validation handles wildcards in the validation rules. I haven't tried it yet. Maybe worth looking at.

I stick to @thepsion5 solution. Thats all i need right now...

I don't have access to try it currently, but could you use a wildcard with the dot notation?

    'email-address.*' => 'email'

Laravel News owner Eric Barnes covered this topic just recently: http://ericlbarnes.com/laravel-array-validation/

I will add some little thing to the @thepsion5 solution:

function rules()
{
    $rules = $this->rules;
    $numEmails = count( $this->get('email') );

    // Added a -1 to generate the right number of rules, otherwise, the validation will fail
    foreach( range(0, $numEmails - 1), as $index) {
        $rules['email.' . $index] = 'email';
    }
    return $rules;
}

This article explains one way to doit: http://ericlbarnes.com/laravel-array-validation/

public function rules()
{
  $rules = [
    'name' => 'required|max:255',
  ];

  foreach($this->request->get('items') as $key => $val)
  {
    $rules['items.'.$key] = 'required|max:10';
  }

  return $rules;
}


And for messages: 

public function messages()
{
  $messages = [];
  foreach($this->request->get('items') as $key => $val)
  {
    $messages['items.'.$key.'.max'] = 'The field labeled "Book Title '.$key.'" must be less than :max characters.';
  }
  return $messages;
}

I made a PR on that, hopefully it's accepted

The article by Eric Barnes is a great resource, but the validation with arrays has a problem with the unique:tablename rule, it doesn't remove the index while looking in the database for duplicates so it gives a "Unknown column 'email.7' error. (email and 7 are just examples). Or maybe I'm missing something?

It made more sense for me to just extend my validator:

public function validateEachExists($attribute, $value, $parameters)
{
    $this->setCustomMessages(['each_exists' => 'One or more :attribute values are invalid.']);
    $items = is_array($value) ? $value : explode(',', $value);
    foreach($items as $item) {
        $value = $this->validateExists($attribute, $item, $parameters);
    }
    return $value;
}

That way I can write my rules like:

    'permissions' => 'each_exists:permissions,id',

Also you might notice the explode in there. That's so I can pass an array or a sting like:

    {"permissions":"2,4,6"}