title: Dropdown to either display a "Please select" option or display the "selected" option in Laravel 5
body: <p>I have the following code to create a dropdown:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;div&gt;
  &lt;label&gt;Project List:&lt;/label&gt;
  {!!Form::select('projects_list[]', $projects_list, $project, ['id'=&gt; 'projects_list','class'=&gt;'form-control'])!!}
  &lt;/div&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>That works fine and it will display the selected project from $project on page load.</p>
  
  <p>($projects_list is a list of all projects and $project is a specific selected project)</p>
  
  <p>If I add in a bit of code to create a "Please select option";</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;div&gt;
  &lt;label&gt;Project List:&lt;/label&gt;
  {!!Form::select('projects_list[]', array_merge(['0' =&gt; 'Please select'], $projects_list), $project, ['id'=&gt; 'projects_list','class'=&gt;'form-control'])!!}
  &lt;/div&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>That shows the option correctly if no project is passed through on page load but then does not display the project if it is passed through.</p>
  
  <p>Is there perhaps another way to display the option for "Please select" and still to be able to show the selected project?</p>
  
  <p>**** <strong><em>EDIT</em></strong> ****</p>
  
  <p><em>What I am doing in the meantime is:</em></p>
  
  <p><em>In my controller:</em></p>
  
  <pre><code>$projects_list = Project::lists('id','name');
  
  $projects_list = array_flip(array_merge(['Please select if applicable'=&gt;0], $projects_list));   
  </code></pre>
  
  <p><em>I have found that if I don't do that array flip / array merge the id's get converted to keys such as 0,1,2,3 instead of the database id's of 0, 10,15,23 whatever.</em></p>
  
  <p><em>Perhaps this is the best option for now? Or is there a more elegant solution?</em></p>
  
  <p>**** <strong><em>END EDIT</em></strong> ****</p>