If you are using Laravel 5.0, this package is unnecessary. Instead, leverage the new form request classes to perform your validation.
"require": { "laracasts/validation": "~1.0" }And then, if using Laravel (not required), add the service provider to app/config/app.php in the providers array.
'Laracasts\Validation\ValidationServiceProvider'Here's an example. Imagine that you need validation for a login form. First, create an object to contain the necessary rules:
<?php namespace MyApp\Forms; use Laracasts\Validation\FormValidator; class Login extends FormValidator { /** * Validation rules for logging in * * @var array */ protected $rules = [ 'username' => 'required', 'password' => 'required' ]; }Next, pull this object into your controller (or wherever you perform your validation).
use MyApp\Forms\Login as LoginForm; use Laracasts\Validation\FormValidationException; // ... protected $loginForm; public function __construct(LoginForm $loginForm) { $this->loginForm = $loginForm; } public function store() { $input = Input::all(); try { $this->loginForm->validate($input); // login user, do whatever, redirect } catch (FormValidationException $e) { return Redirect::back()->withInput()->withErrors($e->getErrors()); } }If validation passes, true will be returned. Otherwise, a FormValidationException exception will be thrown. You can either catch that within your controller, or pass it to, for example, global.php for handling. Either works.
The key is that you'll create a dedicated class for each form that you need to validate. For instance, if a user can register for your site, then you'll have a Registration form object. Maybe something like:
<?php namespace MyApp\Forms; use Laracasts\Validation\FormValidator; class Registration extends FormValidator { /** * Validation rules for registering * * @var array */ protected $rules = [ 'username' => 'required', 'email' => 'required|unique:users', 'age' => 'required|integer', 'gender' => 'in:male,female', 'password' => 'required|confirmed' ]; }Now, just inject this object into your controller or application service, and call a validate() method on it.
$this->registrationForm->validate(Input::all());