How to check for null in other field laravel FormRequest?

Question

I am trying to exclude a field from being validated when another field has a value (not null). In this case, i want 'deleted_pictures' to be excluded if product_pictures is an array (not null). My problem is that i think exclude_unless:product_pictures,null evaluates null as a string, and not as, well, null.

This is my rule.

ProductRequest.php

return [
    'product_pictures.*' => 'required_with:product_pictures|file|max:2048|mimes:jpeg,jpg,png',
    'product_pictures' => 'sometimes|array',
    'deleted_pictures' => ['exclude_unless:product_pictures,null', 'required', new cant_delete_all($max,'1')],
];
read : exclude deleted_pictures unless product_pictures has a value of 'null'

I tried this to confirm my suspicion and it works like it should.

//test_field = 'some_value'
return [
    'test_field' => 'required|string'
    'product_pictures.*' => 'required_with:product_pictures|file|max:2048|mimes:jpeg,jpg,png',
    'product_pictures' => 'sometimes|array',
    'deleted_pictures' => ['exclude_unless:test_field,some_value', 'required', new cant_delete_all($max,'1')],
];
read : exclude deleted_pictures unless test_field has a value of 'some_value'

In my first case, deleted_pictures is excluded because it doesn't detect that product_pictures is 'null' (string)

While on the second case, deleted_pictures is NOT excluded because test_field matches the given value.

My question is, how do you evaluate null value in FormRequest Laravel?

Answer 1

So apparently you can just leave the second parameter blank to evaluate it as null

return [
    'product_pictures.*' => 'required_with:product_pictures|file|max:2048|mimes:jpeg,jpg,png',
    'product_pictures' => 'sometimes|array',
    'deleted_pictures' => ['exclude_unless:product_pictures,', 'required', new cant_delete_all($max,'1')],
];

I'm not sure if this is how its supposed to be done or intended behavior. But im just gonna leave this answer just in case someone might need it. If someone can suggest the 'proper' way of doing it then I'll accept that instead.