From a request

You can create a data object by the values given in the request.

For example, let's say you send a POST request to an endpoint with the following data:

{
    "title" : "Never gonna give you up",
    "artist" : "Rick Astley"
}

This package can automatically resolve a SongData object from these values by using the SongData class we saw in an earlier chapter:

class SongData extends Data
{
    public function __construct(
        public string $title,
        public string $artist,
    ) {
    }
}

You can now inject the SongData class in your controller. It will already be filled with the values found in the request.

class UpdateSongController
{
    public function __invoke(
        Song $model,
        SongData $data
    ){
        $model->update($data->all());
        
        return redirect()->back();
    }
}

As an added benefit, these values will be validated before the data object is created. If the validation fails, a ValidationException will be thrown which will look like you've written the validation rules yourself.

The package will also automatically validate all requests when passed to the from method:

class UpdateSongController
{
    public function __invoke(
        Song $model,
        SongRequest $request
    ){
        $model->update(SongData::from($request)->all());
        
        return redirect()->back();
    }
}

We have a complete section within these docs dedicated to validation, you can find it here.

##Getting the data object filled with request data from anywhere

You can resolve a data object from the container.

app(SongData::class);

We resolve a data object from the container, its properties will already be filled by the values of the request with matching key names. If the request contains data that is not compatible with the data object, a validation exception will be thrown.

##Validating a collection of data objects:

Let's say we want to create a data object like this from a request:

class AlbumData extends Data
{
    public function __construct(
        public string $title,
        #[DataCollectionOf(SongData::class)]
        public DataCollection $songs,
    ) {
    }
}

Since the SongData has its own validation rules, the package will automatically apply them when resolving validation rules for this object.

In this case the validation rules for AlbumData would look like this:

[
    'title' => ['required', 'string'],
    'songs' => ['required', 'array'],
    'songs.*.title' => ['required', 'string'],
    'songs.*.artist' => ['required', 'string'],
]