Custom Validation rules in Laravel 5.1

Question

I'm adding custom validation rules to my Laravel 5.1 application, and I currently have it set up like this in AppServiceProvider :

    Validator::extend('word_count', 'App\CustomValidators@wordCount');
    Validator::extend('required_if_not', 'App\CustomValidators@requiredIfNot');
    Validator::extend('date_in_year', 'App\CustomValidators@dateInYear');

This works, but I'm wondering if there is a better method I should be using with 5.1 rather than calling the Validator facade.

For example, calling to a view no longer requires me to call View::request('template', $viewData) or View::make('template', $viewData) , but instead I can call view('template', $viewData) , which cuts down on the number of namespaces I need to 'use' for my class. I can do something similar with redirects as well.

What is the best/cleanest method in Laravel 5.1 for adding custom validation rules?

Answer 1

Well, a probably solution here is to create a custom function (helper function as view() ) to avoid the facade.

if (! function_exists('validator_ext')) {
    /**
     * Adding custom rules
     *
     * @param  string  $name
     * @param  array   $listener
     * @return \Illuminate\Validation\Factory
     */
    function validator_ext($name, $listener)
    {
        $validator = app('Illuminate\Validation\Factory');
        $validator->extend($name, $listener);
        return $validator;
    }
}

Now you are able to call it as:

validator_ext('word_count', 'App\CustomValidators@wordCount');

Another way without using a helper function is to instantiate the validator at boot method:

$validator = app('Illuminate\Validation\Factory');
$validator->extend('word_count', 'App\CustomValidators@wordCount');