Laravel alternative value for input if Input::old is empty

Yes! Don't use the input tag :)

If you use {{ Form you will get this, and much, much more!

{{ Form::text('email', null, array('class'=>'form-control', 'placeholder'=>'Email Address')) }}

Check out the docs here (http://laravel.com/docs/html & http://laravel.com/docs/requests) and you will notice that when the input is flashed to the session, this input box rendered by blade will automatically replace that "null" (the second parameter) with the flashed value from the session.

This removes the need to check for the old input or have any nasty if/else checks inside your template. Also, you no longer need to worry about any HTML code injections or XSS happening, because Form::text will ensure that the text is correctly converted to their HTML entities.

Where you are checking for errors, you should use a Laravel validator. Something similar to this:

protected function createUser(){

$rules = array(
    'email'=>'required|email',
    'password'=>'required|min:6|confirmed',
    'password_confirmation'=>'required'
);

$validator = Validator::make(Input::all(), $rules);

if (! $validator->passes()) {
    Input::flashExcept('password', 'password_confirmation');
    return Redirect::to('my_form');
} else {
    // do stuff with the form, it's all good
}

return Redirect::intended('/complete');
}

Additionally, in your template, you can show all of the errors from the form:

<ul>
    @foreach($errors->all() as $error)
        <li>{{ $error }}</li>
    @endforeach
</ul>

Or just select the first error and show it under the {{ Form::text

@if ($errors->has('first_name'))
       <span class="error">{{$errors->first('first_name')}}</span>
@endif

Laravel has all of this built in, and you get it for free! Using Requests, Validators, Blade/HTML