how to make an input date field greater than or equal to another date field using validation in laravel

Question

Hi iam developing an application using laravel is there any way to make an input date field greater than or equal to another date field using validation.

I know that i can achieve this through jquery and i have already got that working, but i want to know whether is this achievable through laravel validation since laravel has got some predefined validations.

For Example

protected $validationRules = array
    (   
      'a' => 'date',
      'b' => 'date|(some validation so that the b value is greater than or equal to that of 'a')'
    );

EDIT

If there is any other approach to solve the problem using laravel concept please tell me

I tried

Validator::extend('val_date', function ($attribute,$value,$parameters) {
    return preg_match("between [start date] and DateAdd("d", 1, [end date])",$value);
});

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

I had the same problem. before and after does not work when dates could be the same. Here is my short solution:

NOTE: Laravel 5.3.25 and later have new built in rules: before_or_equal and after_or_equal

---

// 5.1 or newer
Validator::extend('before_or_equal', function($attribute, $value, $parameters, $validator) {
    return strtotime($validator->getData()[$parameters[0]]) >= strtotime($value);
});

// 5.0 & 4.2
Validator::extend('before_or_equal', function($attribute, $value, $parameters) {
    return strtotime(Input::get($parameters[0])) >= strtotime($value);
});

---

$rules = array(
    'start'=>'required|date|before_or_equal:stop',
    'stop'=>'required|date',
);

---

Answer 2

Emil Aspman's answer is correct, but doesn't work for Laravel 5.2. this solution works for Laravel 5.2:

 Validator::extend('before_equal', function($attribute, $value, $parameters, $validator) {
     return strtotime($validator->getData()[$parameters[0]]) >= strtotime($value);
 });

Answer 3

The proper solution would be if you extended the Validator with your own rule. A simple example from the docs:

Validator::extend('foo', function($attribute, $value, $parameters)
{
    return $value == 'foo';
});

Read more here

Answer 4

Yes, you can use after:date or before:date like this:

protected $rules = array(
    'date' => 'after:'.$yourDate
);

or alternatively

protected $rules = array(
    'date' => 'before:'.$yourDate
);

It will do exactly what you described. Also check out the official documentation. You can also specify rules of your own using custom validation rules.