you can use laravel form validation

use this inside ur controller

public function controllerName(Request $request){
    $this->validate($request,[
        'search'=>'required'
    ]);
}

you will automatically redirect()->back() if validation not satisfied. and automatic $request->flash() to re fill the previous form

you will get automatic $errors variable inside the view.blade.php to tell user if validation not satisfied

Thanks David! I forgot about simply just using the built in form validation since after all, it is a form! I appreciate that! I was wondering if it might be possible in the validation to prevent someone from typing something in particular into a form also. For example I would prefer if a user does not pass form validation if they input '. ' or '.'. Is this type of customization possible? Thank you for your help!

Hey Chris glad to help. yes you can with regular expression but u need to use array as the rule value instead of pipeline

$this->validate($request,[
    'search'=>[
            'required',
           'regex:/^[\w]/'    
        ]


]);

^[\w] = the first character of the line must be WORD or NUMBER,, no spaces no symbols like '. , '~!@#$%^

Wow thank you David that is exactly what I wanted to achieve! I tested it and it works great on my site! Thanks again for all your help!