Laravel 5.1 - Custom validation language file

Question

Is it possible to conditionally set a custom language file (eg resources/lang/en/validation_ajax.php ) for a validation request? Just to be clear, I don't want to change the app language, just use another set of messages depending on the request origin.

When I make an ajax validation call I want to use different messages since I'm showing the error messages below the field itself. So there's no need to show the field name (label) again.

I know you can define labels on 'attributes' => [] but it's not worth the effort since I have so many fields in several languages.

I'm using a FormRequest (there's no manual call on the Controller just a type hint).

Answer 1

You can override the messages() method for a specific request (let's say login request). Let me show you: At first place, you need yo create a new custom Form Request, here we will define a custom message for email.required rule:

<?php namespace App\MyPackage\Requests;

use App\Http\Requests\Request;

class LoginRequest  extends Request {

    /**
     * Determine if the user is authorized to make this request.
     *
     * @return bool
     */
    public function authorize()
    {
        return true;
    }

    public function messages()
    {
        return [
            'email.required' => 'how about the email?',
        ];
    }


    /**
     * Get the validation rules that apply to the request.
     *
     * @return array
     */
    public function rules()
    {
        return [
            'email' => ['required', 'email'],
            'password' => ['required', 'confirmed']
        ];
    }
}

Only email.required rule message will be override. For password it will display the default message set at validation.php file.

Now, apply the form request at your controller function like a type hint:

class LoginController{

    public function validateCredentials(LoginRequest $request){
        // do tasks here if rules were success
    }
}

And that is all. The messages() method is useful if you need are creating custom packages and you want to add/edit validation messages.

Update

If you need to carry the bag of messages on into your package's lang file then you can make the following changes:

1. At your package create your custom lang file:

    MyPackage/resources/lang/en/validation.php 

2. Add the messages keeping the same array's structure as project/resources/lang/en/validation.php file:

    <?php return [ 'email' => [ 'required' => 'how about the email?', 'email' => 'how about the email format?', ], ]; 

3. Finally, at your messages() method call the lang's line of your package respectively:

    public function messages(){ return [ 'email.required' => trans('myPackage::validation.email.required'), 'email.emial' => trans('myPackage::validation.email.valid'), ]; }