How to return Laravel errors

Learn how to effectively handle errors in Laravel w/ an example: return custom responses, log errors, and improve user experience.

Returning Laravel Errors

Laravel makes it easy to return errors back to the user. Error messages are typically returned in the form of JSON, so that the user's browser can easily interpret and display the message. In this article, I will demonstrate an example of how to return errors in Laravel.

The first step is to set up the routes for the application. In the routes/web.php file, the following routes can be added:

Route::get('/', function () {
    // Page logic
});

Route::post('/', function (Request $request) {
    // Form submission logic
});

These routes will handle the GET and POST requests for the application. The GET request will be used to display the form, and the POST request will handle the form submission.

Next, we need to create a controller to handle the form submission. This controller will contain the logic for validating and processing the form data. In this example, the controller will be named FormController. To create the controller, run the following command in the terminal:

php artisan make:controller FormController

Now, open the FormController.php file and add the following code:

class FormController extends Controller
{
    public function submit(Request $request)
    {
        $validator = Validator::make($request->all(), [
            'name' => 'required|min:3',
            'email' => 'required|email',
        ]);

        if ($validator->fails()) {
            return response()->json([
                'error' => true,
                'messages' => $validator->errors(),
            ], 422);
        }

        // Process form data...
    }
}

The FormController::submit() method will handle the form submission. The method will first validate the form data, using the Validator class. If the validation fails, an error will be returned in the form of JSON, with the error message. If the validation passes, the form data will be processed.

Finally, the routes file needs to be updated to point to the FormController::submit() method. To do this, open the routes/web.php file and add the following line of code:

Route::post('/', 'FormController@submit');

Now, when the form is submitted, the FormController::submit() method will be called and the form data will be validated. If the validation fails, the user will receive an error message in the form of JSON. This makes it easy for the user's browser to interpret and display the error message.