What is Input normalization in Laravel, and what role does it play in a real application?

What is Input normalization in Laravel, and what role does it play in a real application? In Laravel, input normalization should be understood as part of a larger application architecture rather than as an isolated API call. Requests can be prepared or normalized before validation when an application needs consistent input shapes. A strong understanding includes its purpose, the layer where it belongs, the data or request flow it affects, and the situations where another mechanism may be more appropriate. Practical context: Laravel request objects provide a convenient interface for reading query parameters, form input, files, headers, cookies and route values. The specific focus here is input normalization: Requests can be prepared or normalized before validation when an application needs consistent input shapes. This question is designed to test not only terminology, but also how the concept fits into Laravel's request, application, database, security, or deployment workflow.