I have an input field which needs to be empty, otherwise I want the validation to fail. This is an attempt at stopping spam through a contact form.
I've looked at the documentation for the validation but there's nothing to do this, other than the "max" rule, but this doesn't work.
Any other options?
Here's a clean and (probably) bullet-proof solution:
'mustBeEmpty' => 'present|max:0',
In the method where you are validation, extend/add custom rule:
Validator::extend('mustBeEmpty', function($attr, $value, $params){
if(!empty($attr)) return false;
return true;
});
Then you may use this rule like:
protected $rules = array(
'emptyInputField' => 'mustBeEmpty'
);
Then everything is as usual, just use:
$v = Validator::make(Input::except('_token'), $rules);
if($v->passes()) {
// Passed, means that the emptyInputField is empty
}
There are other ways to do it without extending it like this or extending the Validator class but it's an easy Laravelish way to do it. Btw, there is a package available on Github as Honeypot spam prevention for Laravel applications, you may check that.
For Laravel 8.x and above, you may use the prohibited validation rule:
return [
'emptyInputField' => 'prohibited',
];
'emptyInputField' => 'nullable|prohibited',, as otherwise the rule always triggered, even if an empty string was sent.In laravel 5.8 you can use sometimes for conditional rules adding. 'email' => 'sometimes|email' . This rules will be applied if there is something present in input field.
You can use the empty rule. Details can be seen here: https://laravel.com/docs/5.2/validation#conditionally-adding-rules
