$request->input() removing "+" from POST'd international phone numbers

I'd make a guess at some urlencode/decode stuff : http://php.net/manual/en/function.urlencode.php . The easiest way around it (assuming there isn't an easy laravel-ish way) would maybe be a quick hack like $number = preg_replace('/^\s+/', '+', $number);.

I'll try the urlencode/devode stuff - see if that's what is causing it all.

For the moment, I've used this lib:-

https://github.com/giggsey/libphonenumber-for-php

to ensure that the number is stored in my DB as E164 format international number, which with hindsight is probably the more robust solution anyway :)

How are you doing the POST?

Its common URLs have spaces converted to + symbols when passed as URI parameters

Route::get('/account', function () {

    $phone = Input::get('phone');
    return response()->json(['data'=>$phone]);
});

Then, when you call http://localhost:8000/account?phone=+123456, the output is;

{
data: " 123456"
}

This is because it is assumed that the plus symbol is a substitute for a space.

You can avoid this by encoding the plus with %2b , ie http://localhost:8000/account?phone=%2b123456

{
data: "+123456"
}