Laravel checkbox validation, always empty? - laravel

Question

I have a checkboxes like this:
<div class="form-group">
<div style="display:none ;" class="weekday_message form-control alert-warning"></div>
<label id="weekday2" for="weekday" class="col-md-4 control-label">Weekday</label>
<div class="required form-field" name="weekday" id="weekday">
<input class="weekday" type="checkbox" name="weekdays[]" value="MO">Monday
<input class="weekday" type="checkbox" name="weekdays[]" value="TU">Tuesday
<input class="weekday" type="checkbox" name="weekdays[]" value="WE">Wednesday
<input class="weekday" type="checkbox" name="weekdays[]" value="TH">Thursday
<input class="weekday" type="checkbox" name="weekdays[]" value="FR">Friday
<input class="weekday" type="checkbox" name="weekdays[]" value="SA">Saturday
<input class="weekday" type="checkbox" name="weekdays[]" value="SU">Sunday
</div>
<span class="help-block">
<strong></strong>
</span>
</div>
My validation:
public function rules()
{
return [
'startdate' => 'required|date',
'endate' => 'nullable|date',
'startime' => ['required', new Time],
'endtime' => ['required', new Time],
'title' => 'required',
'entity_id' => 'required',
'type' => 'required|exists:entities,type',
'description' => 'required',
'frequency' => 'required',
'interval' => 'nullable|numeric',
'monthday' => 'nullable|numeric|min:1|max:3',
'weekdays' => 'array|max:3',
'month' => 'nullable|numeric',
'until' => 'nullable|date',
'tags' => 'nullable',
];
}
and controller:
public function storeEvent(EventRequest $request)
{
$test = ($request->input('weekdays'));
dd($test);
$weekday_string = implode(",", $request->input('weekdays'));
$request->merge(array('weekday', $weekday_string));
dd($request->all());
$event = DirtyEvent::create($request->all());
$geoloc_id = Entity::find($event->entity_id)
->first();
$user_id = Auth::id();
// Save Geoloc + user id into newly created event
$event->_geoloc()->associate($geoloc_id);
$event->users()->associate($user_id);
$event->save();
Now, validation seems to pass because it does data dump, however both dd($test) as well as $request->all() are giving me back empty weekdays, like it would not be defined. What could be the possible cause of this?

Answer 1

If you want to make sure you have always at least one weekday selected you should change:
'weekdays' => 'array|max:3',
into:
'weekdays' => 'array|required|max:3',
Also I suppose you don't send data using standard HTML form because you set for example name for divs so maybe you forget to attach weekdays or have bug in code elsewhere?

Answer 2

Your HTML says weekday (singular) but your rules set says weekdays (plural).
There needs to be at least one checkbox selected to make the input weekdays to be included in the request. You can use a default value in case none was selected by adding a hidden input before the checkboxes.
<input type="hidden" name="weekdays" value="defaultValue">