Laravel 5 BaseController for middlewear Auth

Question

I notice that in the example WelcomeController that requires a user to be logged in has:

public function __construct()
{
    $this->middleware('guest');
}

Should I create a BaseController that extends Controller which contains the above code for all controllers that need the user to be logged in, and extend all my controllers from that?

Answer 1

I wouldn't recommend that. Instead, consider applying the Middleware to your routes like here:

Route::group(['middleware' => 'auth'], function()
{
    Route::get('/', function()
    {
        // Has Auth Filter
    });

    Route::get('user/profile', function()
    {
        // Has Auth Filter
    });
});

which is also included the default example on grouped routes in the laravel docs btw.

EDIT

Providing another BaseController is possible since it obviously works. But think about more complex situations where middlewares might need to be applied to only some but not all controller methods.

Routes offers a whole lot more of flexibility in those cases.

But the most important thing is to stay consistent. So just choose what is applicable but prevent your self from mixing it up approaches. This way, your app stays maintainable.

Another important thing to notice is, that this approach is pretty similar to the Laravel 4 -way of handling this problem ( Route Filters ). So if you choose to do it that way, people switching from L4 might have no problems understanding what happens there.