More helper functions in Laravel 5.2

This is a series of posts that showcase new features and aha moments in Laravel 5.2

8. More helper functions

9. Fluent Routing

There are Facades and there are helper functions.

Several Facades have helper function equivalents e.g

Response Facade has response()

Collection Facade has collection()

I am a sucker for helper functions because they are very handy to use.

Here is a list of new helper functions that came bundled with Laravel 5.2:

1. validator()

The validator function creates a new Validator instance.

Remember the Validator Facade? With it, it’s like this:

    protected function store(Request $request)
    {
        return Validator::make($request->all(), [
            'name' => 'required|max:255',
            'email' => 'required|email|max:255|unique:users',
            'password' => 'required|confirmed|min:6',
        ]);
    }

protected function store(Request $request)

{

return Validator::make($request->all(), [

'name' => 'required|max:255',

'email' => 'required|email|max:255|unique:users',

'password' => 'required|confirmed|min:6',

]);

}

..but with the validator helper function, we can perform a validation like so:

 protected function store(Request $request)
    {
        $rules = [
            'name' => 'required|max:255',
            'email' => 'required|email|max:255|unique:users',
            'password' => 'required|confirmed|min:6',
        ];
        validator($request->all(), $rules);
    }

protected function store(Request $request)

{

$rules = [

'name' => 'required|max:255',

'email' => 'required|email|max:255|unique:users',

'password' => 'required|confirmed|min:6',

];

validator($request->all(), $rules);

}

You can also pass custom messages and attributes to it because this is the signature for the validator function in Laravel source code:

   /**
     * Create a new Validator instance.
     *
     * @param  array  $data
     * @param  array  $rules
     * @param  array  $messages
     * @param  array  $customAttributes
     * @return IlluminateContractsValidationValidator
     */
    function validator(array $data = [], array $rules = [], array $messages = [], array $customAttributes = []){ ... }