Can I restore the input field values after validation through custom request objects in Laravel 5.1?

Question

Let's say I have a simple contact form.

<form action="/message" method="post">
    {!! csrf_field() !!}
    <div class="form-group">
        <label>Name: </label>
        <input type="text" name="name" class="form-control">
    </div>

    <div class="form-group">
        <label>Email: </label>
        <input type="email" name="email" class="form-control">
    </div>

    <div class="form-group">
        <label>Your Message: </label>
        <textarea name="message" class="form-control"></textarea>
    </div>

    <div class="form-group">
        <button class="btn btn-primary">Submit Message</button>
    </div>
</form>

Here is my controller to handle that request:

public function sendMessage(ContactRequest $request)
{
    dd($request->all());
}

Notice that I am injecting ContactRequest object, so the validation is working perfectly.

The Problem

How can I restore the old input values in the contact form? So that the user wouldn't have to refill all of the fields.

Answer 1

If the ContactRequest validation fails you will be redirected to your form with the errors and also the old input.

So just use {{ old('field') }} in your blade file.

Example for your code:

<form action="/message" method="post">
{!! csrf_field() !!}
<div class="form-group">
    <label>Name: </label>
    <input type="text" name="name" value="{{ old('name') }}" class="form-control">
</div>

<div class="form-group">
    <label>Email: </label>
    <input type="email" name="email" value="{{ old('email') }}"  class="form-control">
</div>

<div class="form-group">
    <label>Your Message: </label>
    <textarea name="message" class="form-control">{{ old('message') }}"</textarea>
</div>

<div class="form-group">
    <button class="btn btn-primary">Submit Message</button>
</div>