Last updated on February 17, 2018
Laravel 5.4 shipped with two new middlewares called TrimStrings and ConvertEmptyStringsToNull
TrimStrings middleware – automatically trim all the request data.
ConvertEmptyStringsToNull middleware- automatically convert all strings to null.
Trim Strings Middleware
As the name implies, this middleware removes extra spaces from the beginning and ending from request data automatically. For example, if a user submits something like this.
dd(request('email'));
// '[email protected] '
With the presence of this middleware (\Illuminate\Foundation\Http\Middleware\TrimStrings::class) in App/Kernel.php, it gets converted into.
dd(request('email'));
// It'[email protected]'
Its removed extra space.
ConvertEmptyStringsToNull
Just as the name suggests, this middleware converts empty strings to null. If a user submits an empty form instead of getting '' it gets converted to null.
If the user submits a form with a not required field that maps to the nullable database column.
dd(request('email'));
// ' '
With the presence of this middleware (\Illuminate\Foundation\Http\Middleware\ConvertEmptyStringsToNull::class) in App/Kernel.php, it gets converted into.
dd(request('email'));
// null