How to use exists validation in Laravel only if the value is not empty?

Web Development
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1

I am working on a Laravel application where I have a field that should be checked against the database using the exists validation rule. However, this field is not always required, and I only want to check it against the database if it has a value. How can I achieve this in Laravel’s validate method? In short, I want to do exists validation with a possibly null value.

2

You can try combining the present, exists, and nullable validation rules. If you want to ensure that the field is always present and either a valid or null value exists, then you can use the following validation rule.

$validatedData = $request->validate([
	'field_name' => 'present|exists:table_name,field_name|nullable'
]);

Or
If you want to check the field against the database only when it has a value, you can use the following validation rule:

$validatedData = $request->validate([
	'field_name' => 'sometimes|exists:table_name,field_name|nullable'
]);