Laravel Form Data Parser

A professional Laravel package for parsing multipart/form-data requests, especially useful for handling PUT, PATCH, and DELETE requests with file uploads.

Installation

composer require rawnoq/laravel-form-data-parser

The package will be automatically discovered and registered by Laravel.

Features

• ✅ Automatically parses multipart/form-data requests
• ✅ Supports nested form fields with bracket notation (e.g., name[ar], name[en], items[0][name])
• ✅ Handles file uploads in PUT/PATCH/DELETE requests
• ✅ Converts flat keys to nested arrays automatically
• ✅ Robust error handling and edge case support
• ✅ Works seamlessly with Laravel's request handling
• ✅ Compatible with Laravel 11+ and Laravel 12+
• ✅ No configuration required

Usage

The package automatically registers a middleware that parses multipart/form-data requests. No configuration needed!

The middleware automatically:

• Parses multipart/form-data content
• Extracts form fields and files
• Converts bracket notation to nested arrays
• Makes data available via $request->input() and $request->file()

Example

// In your controller
public function update(Request $request)
{
    // Access form data
    $name = $request->input('name');
    $nameAr = $request->input('name.ar'); // Nested notation
    $itemName = $request->input('items.0.name'); // Array notation
    
    // Access files
    $avatar = $request->file('avatar');
    $documents = $request->file('documents'); // Array of files
    
    // Process your request...
}

Supported Form Field Formats

The package supports various form field formats:

// Simple fields
name=John

// Nested fields
name[ar]=جون
name[en]=John

// Array fields
items[0][name]=Item 1
items[1][name]=Item 2

// Mixed with files
avatar=file
name[ar]=جون

How It Works

The middleware intercepts requests with multipart/form-data content type and:

1. Extracts the boundary from the request (multiple methods for reliability)
2. Parses each part of the multipart data
3. Identifies files vs regular form fields
4. Creates temporary files for uploaded files
5. Converts bracket notation to nested arrays
6. Merges parsed data into the request object
7. Handles errors gracefully without breaking the request

Supported Methods

The middleware processes requests for methods other than:

• GET
• HEAD
• POST (Laravel handles this natively)

This means it works with:

• PUT
• PATCH
• DELETE
• And other custom methods

Error Handling

The package includes comprehensive error handling:

• Invalid boundary detection with multiple fallback methods
• File creation errors are caught and handled
• Temporary file cleanup on errors
• Graceful degradation - if parsing fails, the request continues normally
• Debug logging in development mode

Requirements

• PHP 8.2+
• Laravel 11.0+ or Laravel 12.0+

🧪 Testing

The package comes with a comprehensive test suite:

# Run tests
composer test

# Run tests with coverage
composer test-coverage

Test Coverage

The test suite includes:

• ✅ Form data parsing tests
• ✅ Nested fields and bracket notation tests
• ✅ File upload handling tests
• ✅ Middleware integration tests
• ✅ ServiceProvider registration tests
• ✅ Error handling tests

License

MIT License - see LICENSE file for details.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.