title: Laravel avoid overlapping dates
body: <p>I am new to Laravel and am trying to implement reservation dates that can not overlap on any day.</p>
  
  <p>I have a model called 'Bookings' that includes the room_id, start_date and end_date.</p>
  
  <p>I have validation that checks that the end date can not be before the start:</p>
  
  <pre><code>$this-&gt;validate($request, [
          'start_date' =&gt; 'required|date',
          'end_date' =&gt; 'required|date|after_or_equal:start_date',
  ]);
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>However I am not sure how to check that the date range does not conflict with any other date ranges of the same room_id stored in the bookings table (as one room can not be booked twice in the same range).</p>
  
  <p>Any help would be appreciated,</p>
  
  <p>Thanks!</p>