Form request, updating a unique field

Do you have 2 separate requests for creating and updating?

Try using

'name' => 'required|alpha_num_spaces|unique:categories,name,' . $this->segment(3)

@RachidLaasri, this feels like a non-solution as well, and segement(3) returns null. Thanks for your answer though!

@kyslik, If you're talking about request forms, I'm using one request form for both creating and updating.

If your wildcard is category then you should write the following rule:

 'name' => 'required|alpha_num_spaces|unique:categories,name,' .  $this->route('category)

You need to let us know the route to know where to pick up the category ID from.

Is it in the form as a hidden field, or in the query string?

Im using slugs:

        Route::bind('category', function($value) {
            return Category::where('slug', $value)->firstOrFail();
        });

My routes just look like:

mydomain/categories/slug

The below worked, but same issue when creating a new category, trying to get property of non-object

'name' => 'required|alpha_num_spaces|unique:categories,name,' .  $this->route('category')->id

This doesn't work:

'name' => 'required|alpha_num_spaces|unique:categories,name,' .  $this->route('category')

One way is:

public function rules() 
{


    $categoryId = null;
 
     if($this->route('category'))
      {  
           $categoryId = App\Category::where('slug', $this->route('category'))->first()->id;
       }

       return [
           'name' => 'required|alpha_num_spaces|unique:categories,name,' . $categoryId
       ];
}

Another way is to ignore a given ID

Thanks, but the solution I came up with still looks easier and simpler to me, it works. I was just wondering if there was a better way of doing this, like the link you posted, ignoring the ID. But not in the request form I guess :) Thanks though for answering.

        $id = NULL;

        if($this->category)
        {
            $id = $this->category->id;
        }

This is the way I establish the validation rules:

class CategoryRequest extends FormRequest
{
    public function rules()
    {
        switch ($this->method())
        {
            case 'POST':
                return [
                    'name' => 'required|unique:categories,name',
                    ];
                    break;

            case 'PATCH':
            case 'PUT':
                return [
                    'name' => 'required|unique:categories,name,' .$this->category->id,
               ];
                break;
        }
    }
}

I hope it will work with you.:)

Thanks, it might work, but I am just not a fan of that method. My own method also worked and is a lot cleaner (for me). I just thought there was a nice laravel-ish way :)

Just be aware that your method works because the id being null seems to cause the unique validation to be broken. Unless its documented that its fine to work in this way, a future version could alter that behaviour?

Is it actually checking for uniqueness?

I'd be tempted to write the rule twice;

    public function rules()
    {
        if($this->category)
        {
        return [
            'name' => 'required|alpha_num_spaces|unique:categories,name,' . $this->category->id
        ];
        }

        return [
            'name' => 'required|alpha_num_spaces|unique:categories'];
    }

Hmm yeah haven't thought of that just yet :) It does work though, when updating an existing field while using the same name, it does update, and when creating a new record with the same name, it throws an error saying a record with that name already exists. So yeah it does work.

But in the end I just thought there would be a nice laravel way for this, but it seems that there is not.

A simple and fast way!

In web.php

Route::post('/companies/update/{company}', 'CompanyController@update');

In CompanyController.php

    
public function update(Company $company, StoreCompanyRequest $request)
{
    //perform your update...
}

In StoreCompanyRequest.php

public function rules()
{

    /*
     * When a company model has been resolved will be ignored by the "unique" rule.
     * The "bypass" variable is automatically converted to the model primary key value.
    */
    $bypass = $this->company->id ?? "";

    return [
          "code"  => "required|digits_between:1,11|unique:companies,code,{$bypass}"
    ];

}

@alefcarvalho you can try also this technique

<?php

namespace App\Http\Requests;

use Illuminate\Foundation\Http\FormRequest;

class SubcategoryRequest extends FormRequest
{
    /**
     * Determine if the user is authorized to make this request.
     *
     * @return bool
     */
    public function authorize()
    {
        return true;
    }

    /**
     * Get the validation rules that apply to the request.
     *
     * @return array
     */
    public function rules()
    {
        return [
            'name' => ($this->getMethod() == 'POST') ? 'required|unique:subcategories|max:50' : 'required|max:50|unique:subcategories,name,'.$this->subcategory->id,
            'category_id' => 'required|not_in:0',
        ];
    }
}

@neeraj1005 its a 7 month old reply to a 3 year old question !

@snapey atleast we know it works in php5