How to validate if an attribute belongs to a certain user

November 27, 2021

Hy guys I am trying to validate if the category, belongs to a certain user, I have tryed this but I getting an error when I enter a non existing value. What I tryed:

'category' => ['nullable','exists:categories,id', function ($attribute, $value, $fail) {


    $category = Category::where('id', $value)->first();

    if($category->vcard!= $this->vcard->phone_number)
    {
       $fail('The selected category is invalid.');
    }
}]

So this works when I entered a valid category, but if I entered a wrong categry, for example category id 100000 that doesnt exists, throws me this error, on postman:

I thought that the 'exists:categories,id' will fix me, the non existing ids.

Works:

{
 "payment_reference": "a1@mail.com",
 "payment_type": "PAYPAL",
 "type": "D",
 "value": 10,
 "description": "Teste",
 "category": 500
}

Not working:

{
 "payment_reference": "a1@mail.com",
 "payment_type": "PAYPAL",
 "type": "D",
 "value": 10,
 "description": "Teste",
 "category": 1000000
}

>Solution :

A simple way to fix this would be to check if $category is null or not:

if($category && $category->vcard != $this->vcard->phone_number) {
   $fail('The selected category is invalid.');
}

When using find or first with Eloquent, the model will be returned if it exists and null will be returned if it doesn’t.

Alternatively, you could use the bail validation rule for category:

'category' => [
    'bail',
    'nullable',
    'exists:categories,id',
    function ($attribute, $value, $fail) {
        $category = Category::where('id', $value)->first();

        if ($category->vcard != $this->vcard->phone_number) {
            $fail('The selected category is invalid.');
        }
    },
],

This will mean that if the exists rule fails the closure won’t even be executed.