• We often encounter scenarios like ticket purchasing queries that require date range validation: the start date must be greater than or equal to today, and the end date must be greater than or equal to the start date.

Version

• Laravel 5.5.40
• PHP 7.1

Implementation Steps

1. Create a Form Request:
   

   

   
   Note: Remember to return true in the authorize() method since we’re handling authentication elsewhere

2. Basic validation rules:
   

   

3. Special validation challenge:
   Initial attempt to validate start_date using an extra field:
   

   

   
   Testing shows this approach doesn’t work as expected

4. Debugging reveals the validation data is captured before custom rules:
   

   

   
   

   

5. Solution: Override prepareForValidation()
   

   

   
   This ensures curr_date is available during validation

6. Final working validation:
   

   

Technical Analysis

1. IoC Container handles dependency injection for form requests
2. Validation Workflow:
   • prepareForValidation() (custom preparation)
   • Create validator instance with current request data
   • Execute validation rules
3. Key implementation detail:

   protected function prepareForValidation()
   {
       $this->merge(['curr_date' => date('Y-m-d')]);
   }
   

4. Alternative approach using built-in today keyword:

   'start_date' => 'required|date|after_or_equal:today',
   

   Leverages PHP’s strtotime() recognition of “today”

Validation Flowchart

graph TD
    A[Request Initiated] --> B[Resolve FormRequest]
    B --> C[Prepare Validation Data]
    C --> D[Execute Validation Rules]
    D --> E{Validation Pass?}
    E -->|Yes| F[Process Request]
    E -->|No| G[Return Validation Errors]

This approach ensures robust date validation while maintaining Laravel’s elegant syntax and validation capabilities.