Laravel 5: Accessing Validation Features With validator

The validator helper function is a versatile helper function. If no arguments are supplied to the validator function (all arguments are optional), the function will return a "Illuminate\Contracts\Validation\Factory" implementation instance (the default implementation will be an instance of "Illuminate\Validation\Factory").

Using the validator function without arguments and gaining access to the instance methods is essentially the same as using the "Illuminate\Support\Facades\Validator" facade.

#Signature

The signature of the validator function is:

1 
2function validator();
3 
4function validator(
5    array $data = [],
6    array $rules = [],
7    array $messages = [],
8    array $customAttributes []
9);

#Example Use

The following examples are equivalent; all the examples will make use of the request helper function.

 1use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Validator;
 2 
 3// Using the Validator facade.
 4$validator = Validator::make(request()->all(), [
 5    'title' => 'required|unique:posts|max:255',
 6    'body'  => 'required'
 7]);
 8 
 9// Using the validator helper function.
10$anotherValidator = validator()->make(request()->all(), [
11    'title' => 'required|unique:posts|max:255',
12    'body'  => 'required'
13]);

The second example above can be shortened even further. You can supply the arguments for the make instance method directly to the validator helper function. When you supply arguments to the validator helper function it will call and return the value of the make instance method:

1$validator = validator(request()->all, [
2    'title' => 'required|unique:posts|max:255',
3    'body'  => 'required'
4]);

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