Laravel: Validation unique on update

Question

I know this question has been asked many times before but no one explains how to get the id when you're validating in the model.

'email' => 'unique:users,email_address,10'

My validation rule is in the model so how do I pass the ID of the record to the validation rule.

Here is my models/User

protected $rules_update = [
    'email_address' => 'required|email|unique:users,email_address,'.$id,
    'first_name' => "required",
    'last_name' => "required",
    'password' => "required|min:6|same:password_confirm",
    'password_confirm' => "required:min:6|same:password",
    'password_current' => "required:min:6"
];

models/BaseModel

    protected $rules = array();

public $errors;

/*
    * @data: array, Data to be validated
    * @rules: string, rule name in model 
*/

public function validate($data, $rules = "rules") {

    $validation  = Validator::make($data, $this->$rules);

    if($validation->passes()) {
        return true;
    }

    $this->errors = $validation->messages();

    return false;
}

Answer 1

Just a side note, most answers to this question talk about email_address while in Laravel's inbuilt auth system, the email field name is just email. Here is an example how you can validate a unique field, i.e. an email on the update:

In a Form Request, you do like this:

public function rules()
{
  return [
      'email' => 'required|email|unique:users,email,'.$this->user->id,
  ];
}

Or if you are validating your data in a controller directly:

public function update(Request $request, User $user)
{
  $request->validate([
      'email' => 'required|email|unique:users,email,'.$user->id,
  ]);
}

Update: If you are updating the signed in user and aren't injecting the User model into your route, you may encounter undefined property when accessing id on $this->user. In that case, use:

public function rules()
    {
      return [
          'email' => 'required|email|unique:users,email,'.$this->user()->id,
      ];
    }

A more elegant way since Laravel 5.7 is:

public function rules()
{
    return [
        'email' => ['required', 'email', \Illuminate\Validation\Rule::unique('users')->ignore($this->user()->id)]
    ];
}

P.S: I have added some other rules, i.e. required and email, in order to make this example clear for newbies.