Validating an API request in Laravel 5.1 - validation

Question

I am creating a simple api using laravel 5.1 to create a row in a table and return the id of the newly created row.
I am able to do so, but when it comes to validating I am not sure what to do.
e.g.
transaction_request table
id|order_id|customer_id|amount
validation rules for order_id and customer_id is just required
my uri to request this is http://localhost:8000/api/v1/transactionRequests?order_id=123&customer_id=&amount=3300
note that customer_id is not defined. user is returned with following json.
{
"error": {
"code": "GEN-WRONG-ARGS",
"http_code": 400,
"message": "{\"customer_id\":[\"The customer_id field is required.\"]}"
}
}
See the message: with those '\', How do I fix that. I know, it is because, I use following validation method in my controller that throws the exception
public function validateRequestOrFail($request, array $rules, $messages = [], $customAttributes = [])
{
$validator = $this->getValidationFactory()->make($request->all(), $rules, $messages, $customAttributes);
if ($validator->fails())
{
throw new Exception($validator->messages());
}
}
and I use catch to deal with it as following
try {
if(sizeof(TransactionRequest::$rules) > 0)
$this->validateRequestOrFail($request, TransactionRequest::$rules);
} catch (Exception $e) {
return $this->response->errorWrongArgs($e->getMessage());
}
errorWrongArgs is defined as following
public function errorWrongArgs($message = 'Wrong Arguments')
{
return $this->setStatusCode(400)->withError($message, self::CODE_WRONG_ARGS);
}
public function withError($message, $errorCode)
{
return $this->withArray([
'error' => [
'code' => $errorCode,
'http_code' => $this->statusCode,
'message' => $message
]
]);
}
I want the response to be clean as following (btw i am using ellipsesynergie/api-response library and not the default response class, because I am using chrisbjr/api-guard)
{
"error": {
"code": "GEN-WRONG-ARGS",
"http_code": 400,
"message": {
"customer_id": "The customer_id field is required."
}
}
}

Answer 1

Yes, the problem was in my understanding of what $validator->messages() returns, it returns a MessageBag object which is more like a Json object. Where as Exception() expects a String message. Thus it treats the Json as a String by escaping quote character as \". Solution to this is I pass the Json string to Exception method but after I catch it I convert the Json String to an array using json_decode, which is then taken by my response class.
throw new Exception($validator->messages());
return $this->response->errorWrongArgs(json_decode($e->getMessage(),true));