Validate single rows only when they are present Laravel - laravel

Question

So i have a model named Customer.
The db the Customer looks like this:
id, name, lastName, personal, address, zip, location, phones, emails updated_at, created_at
Emails and Phones is special rows because they are store as an json object example
['john#doe.com', 'some#othermail.com', 'more#mails.com']
I use the Customer Model to store the validation rules and custom messages like this
<?php
class Customer extends BaseModel
{
public function validationRules()
{
return array(
'name' => 'required|max:255',
'lastName' =>'max:255',
'personal'=> 'integer',
'location' => 'max:255',
'address' => 'max:255',
'zip' => 'required|integer',
'phones' => 'betweenOrArray:8,10|required_without:emails',
'emails' => 'emailOrArray'
);
}
public function validationMessages()
{
// returns Validation Messages (its too much to write down)
}
}
The OrArray Rule is found here https://stackoverflow.com/a/18163546/1430587
I call them through my controller like this
public function store()
{
$customer = new Customer;
$messages = $customer->validationMessages();
$rules = $customer->validationRules();
$input['name'] = Input::get('name');
$input['lastName'] = Input::get('lastName');
$input['personal'] = preg_replace("/[^0-9]/", "", Input::get('personal'));
$input['location'] = Input::get('location');
$input['address'] = Input::get('address');
$input['zip'] = Input::get('zip');
$input['emails'] = Input::get('emails');
$input['phones'] = Input::get('phones');
foreach($input['phones'] as $i => $value)
{
$input['phones'][$i] = preg_replace("/[^0-9]/", "", $value);
}
$validator = Validator::make($input, $rules, $messages);
}
This all works just fine, but I want to be able to PUT/PATCH request to update a single row.
But the validationRules has Required on certain fields so when its not present i cant update that single row. Without getting an error that the other fields (witch I'm not posting) is required.
How would I best approach this ?

Answer 1

You should get that instance of the model that represent the row you want to edit, that's why the resource controller's update method has a parameter that is the resource you want to edit.
public function update($resourceId) {
$customer = Customer::where('id', '=', $resourceId);
}
Now this customer has all the attributes you set before, so you can access them like:
$customer->name;
$customer->lastName;
So when you valide the values you can use the existing values in your validator where the input is empty:
$input['name'] = (Input::get('name')) ? (Input::get('name')) : $customer->name;
Or a prettier solution with the elvis operator:
$input['name'] = (Input::get('name')) ?: $customer->name;

Answer 2

I came up with another solution to this problem that works very well and its much cleaner.
$customer = Customer::find($id);
$input = Input::except('_method', '_token');
$customer->fill($input);