title: Laravel 4 Validation
body: <p>I use the following rules for validation on creating a new user:</p>
  
  <pre><code>protected $rules= [
      'name'    =&gt; 'required',
      'email'    =&gt; [
          'required',
          'unique:user',
          'email'
      ]
  ];
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>When updating an existing user I use the same ruleset as shown above
  but don't want a validation error if the user didn't change his email at all.</p>
  
  <p>I currently resolve this by using the following:</p>
  
  <pre><code>if (!User::changed('email')) {
      unset($user-&gt;email);
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>It feels like a dirty workaround to me so I was wondering if there are better alternatives.</p>
  
  <p>Also note that the <code>changed</code> method is something I wrote myself. Does anyone know if there
  is a native Laravel 4 method for checking whether a model property has changed?</p>
  
  <p>Thanks!</p>