Hello guys, today I’m going to show you how to display validation error custom messages. I’ll share three methods to change the error messages. Let’s start:

Table of Contents

1. Set Error Messages in Controller
2. Adding Error Messages in Language File
3. Creating Custom Request

Step 1 : Set Error Messages in Controller

We can easily change custom error messages in the controller. This is a quick solution. Have a look at this method:

<?php

namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use App\Book;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use Validator;

class BookController extends Controller
{
    public function store(Request $request)
    {
        // validator
        $validator = Validator::make($request->all(), [
            'name' => 'required',
            'author' => 'required',
        ], [
            'name.required' => 'Please enter book name',
            'author.required' => 'Please enter book author',
        ]);

        // check validation
        if ($validator->fails()) {
            $response = [
                'success' => false,
                'message' => $validator->messages()
            ];
            return response()->json($response, 404);
        }

        // try to store the book
        try {
            $input = $request->all();
            Book::create($input);

            $success = true;
            $message = "Stored successful";
        } catch (\Illuminate\Database\QueryException $ex) {
            $success = false;
            $data = null;
            $message = $ex->getMessage();
        }

        // make response
        $response = [
            'success' => $success,
            'message' => $message
        ];

        // return response
        return response()->json($response, 200);
    }
}

Step 2 : Adding Error Messages in Language File

This is the last method. If we set custom error messages here, these will work in the whole project.

Open resources/lang/en/validation.php file and add custom errors with messages in the “custom” array. Here’s an example:

'custom' => [
    'name' => [
        'required' => 'Please enter book name',
    ],
    'author' => [
        'required' => 'Please enter book author',
    ],
],

and the BookController looks like:

<?php

namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use App\Book;
use Validator;

class BookController extends Controller
{
    public function store(Request $request)
    {
        // validator
        $validator = Validator::make($request->all(), [
            'name' => 'required',
            'author' => 'required',
        ]);

        // check validation
        if ($validator->fails()) {
            $response = [
                'success' => false,
                'message' => $validator->messages()
            ];
            return response()->json($response, 404);
        }

        // try to store the book
        try {
            $input = $request->all();
            Book::create($input);

            $success = true;
            $message = "Book successfully stored";
        } catch (\Illuminate\Database\QueryException $ex) {
            $success = false;
            $message = $ex->getMessage();
        }

        // make response
        $response = [
            'success' => $success,
            'message' => $message
        ];

        // return response
        return response()->json($response, 200);
    }
}

Step 3 : Creating Custom Request

By creating a custom request we can do this. To do this, we have to create a request. Let’s create a request by using this artisan command:

php artisan make:request BookFormRequest

Open the BookFormRequest from app\Http\Requests and paste this code:

<?php

namespace App\Http\Requests;

use Illuminate\Foundation\Http\FormRequest;

class BookFormRequest 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' => 'required',
            'author' => 'required',
        ];
    }

    /**
     * Get the error messages for the defined validation rules.
     *
     * @return array
     */
    public function messages()
    {
        return [
            'name.required' => 'Please enter book name',
            'author.required' => 'Please enter book author',
        ];
    }
}

Let’s use this BookFormRequest request in our BookController.

<?php

namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use App\Http\Requests\BookFormRequest;
use App\Book;

class BookController extends Controller
{
    public function store(BookFormRequest $request)
    {
        // try to store the book
        try {
            $input = $request->all();
            Book::create($input);

            $success = true;
            $message = "Book successfully stored";
        } catch (\Illuminate\Database\QueryException $ex) {
            $success = false;
            $message = $ex->getMessage();
        }

        // make response
        $response = [
            'success' => $success,
            'message' => $message
        ];

        // return response
        return response()->json($response, 200);
    }
}

Note: To get the response from the custom request, we have to set header Accept: application/json.

The tutorial is over. You can choose any method. Thank you.