Laravel; how make setLocale permanent?

Question

I've my home route

Route::get('/', 'HomeController@index')->name('home');

And a specific route to change language

Route::get('/setLocale/{locale}', 'HomeController@setLocale')->name('setLocale');

In HomeController->setLocale($locale) I check if $locale is a valid locale, then simply do

\App::setLocale($locale);

Then redirect to home.

Here, in HomeController->index() I verify locale using

$locale = \App::getLocale();

The problem is that after user CHANGES the locale, the app set the new locale, redirect, but the locale detected is still the DEFAULT locale, not the new one setup by the user.

How / where / when can I make persistent the change to app locale?

I thinked Laravel was setting a locale cookies or something when using setLocale and re-reading it when using getLocale but now I think it's not this the way Laravel works.

I ask, again: how can I set app locale so that is preserved after page change?

Answer 1

I did that by using a middleware. Here's my code:

LanguageMiddleware:

public function handle($request, Closure $next)
{
    if(session()->has('locale'))
        app()->setLocale(session('locale'));
    else 
        app()->setLocale(config('app.locale'));

    return $next($request);
}

remember to register your middleware :)

The users are able to change the language, with a simple GET-Route:

Route::get('/lang/{key}', function ($key) {
    session()->put('locale', $key);
    return redirect()->back();
});

Hopefully that helps you :)

Apparently, there are some changes in Laravel 7.0!

If you are using the code above, please change from a BeforeMiddleware to a AfterMiddleware! (see https://laravel.com/docs/7.x/middleware)

If you don't do this, the value of session('locale') will always be null!