Laravel unique field validate not working - validation

Question

i have have a field called mac where i store mac address but i need it to be unique to avoid duplicate mac address.
code:
return [
'user_id' => 'required|integer',
'mac' => array('required|unique:mac', 'regex:/^([0-9A-Z]{2}[-]){5}([0-9A-Z]{1,2})$/'),
];
error:
Method [validateRequired|unique] does not exist.
structure:
CREATE TABLE `devices` (
`id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`user_id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL,
`name` varchar(255) COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci NOT NULL,
`mac` varchar(255) COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci NOT NULL,
`content` varchar(255) COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci NOT NULL,
`status` tinyint(1) NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',
`created_at` timestamp NULL DEFAULT NULL,
`updated_at` timestamp NULL DEFAULT NULL,
`deleted_at` timestamp NULL DEFAULT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`id`),
UNIQUE KEY `devices_mac_unique` (`mac`),
KEY `devices_user_id_foreign` (`user_id`),
CONSTRAINT `devices_user_id_foreign` FOREIGN KEY (`user_id`) REFERENCES `users` (`id`) ON DELETE CASCADE
) ENGINE=InnoDB AUTO_INCREMENT=3 DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8 COLLATE=utf8_unicode_ci;

Answer 1

You would need to define the table the mac address would need to be checked against
return [
'user_id' => 'required|integer',
'mac' => 'required|unique:devices,mac|regex:/^([0-9A-Z]{2}[-]){5}([0-9A-Z]{1,2})$/',
];
Update - When updating the record, instead of a create you would extend your rule to.
return [
'user_id' => 'required|integer',
'mac' => 'required|unique:devices,mac,' . $device->id . '|regex:/^([0-9A-Z]{2}[-]){5}([0-9A-Z]{1,2})$/',
];