Easy i18n localization for Laravel, an useful tool to combine with Laravel localization classes.

The package offers the following:

• Detect language from browser
• Smart redirects (Save locale in session/cookie)
• Smart routing (Define your routes only once, no matter how many languages you use)
• Translatable Routes
• Supports caching & testing
• Option to hide default locale in url
• Many snippets and helpers (like language selector)

• Installation
• Usage
• Redirect Middleware
• Helpers
• Translated Routes
• Caching routes
• Testing
• Common Issues
  • POST is not working
  • MethodNotAllowedHttpException
  • Validation message is always in default locale
• Collaborators
• Changelog
• License

Install the package via composer: composer require mcamara/laravel-localization

For Laravel 5.4 and below it necessary to register the service provider.

In order to edit the default configuration you may execute:

php artisan vendor:publish --provider="Mcamara\LaravelLocalization\LaravelLocalizationServiceProvider"

After that, config/laravellocalization.php will be created.

The configuration options are:

• supportedLocales Languages of your app (Default: English & Spanish).
• useAcceptLanguageHeader If true, then automatically detect language from browser.
• hideDefaultLocaleInURL If true, then do not show default locale in url.
• localesOrder Sort languages in custom order.
• localesMapping Rename url locales.
• utf8suffix Allow changing utf8suffix for CentOS etc.
• urlsIgnored Ignore specific urls.

You may register the package middleware in the app/Http/Kernel.php file:

<?php namespace App\Http;

use Illuminate\Foundation\Http\Kernel as HttpKernel;

class Kernel extends HttpKernel {
    /**
    * The application's route middleware.
    *
    * @var array
    */
    protected $middlewareAliases = [
        /**** OTHER MIDDLEWARE ****/
        'localize'                => \Mcamara\LaravelLocalization\Middleware\LaravelLocalizationRoutes::class,
        'localizationRedirect'    => \Mcamara\LaravelLocalization\Middleware\LaravelLocalizationRedirectFilter::class,
        'localeSessionRedirect'   => \Mcamara\LaravelLocalization\Middleware\LocaleSessionRedirect::class,
        'localeCookieRedirect'    => \Mcamara\LaravelLocalization\Middleware\LocaleCookieRedirect::class,
        'localeViewPath'          => \Mcamara\LaravelLocalization\Middleware\LaravelLocalizationViewPath::class
    ];
}

If you are using Laravel 11, you may register in bootstrap/app.php file in closure withMiddleware:

return Application::configure(basePath: dirname(__DIR__))
    // Other application configurations
    ->withMiddleware(function (Middleware $middleware) {
        $middleware->alias([
            /**** OTHER MIDDLEWARE ALIASES ****/
            'localize'                => \Mcamara\LaravelLocalization\Middleware\LaravelLocalizationRoutes::class,
            'localizationRedirect'    => \Mcamara\LaravelLocalization\Middleware\LaravelLocalizationRedirectFilter::class,
            'localeSessionRedirect'   => \Mcamara\LaravelLocalization\Middleware\LocaleSessionRedirect::class,
            'localeCookieRedirect'    => \Mcamara\LaravelLocalization\Middleware\LocaleCookieRedirect::class,
            'localeViewPath'          => \Mcamara\LaravelLocalization\Middleware\LaravelLocalizationViewPath::class,
        ]);
    })

Add the following to your routes file:

// routes/web.php

Route::group(['prefix' => LaravelLocalization::setLocale()], function()
{
	/** ADD ALL LOCALIZED ROUTES INSIDE THIS GROUP **/
	Route::get('/', function()
	{
		return View::make('hello');
	});

	Route::get('test',function(){
		return View::make('test');
	});
});

/** OTHER PAGES THAT SHOULD NOT BE LOCALIZED **/

Once this route group is added to the routes file, a user can access all locales added into supportedLocales (en and es by default). For example, the above route file creates the following addresses:

// Set application language to English
https://url-to-laravel/en
https://url-to-laravel/en/test

// Set application language to Spanish
https://url-to-laravel/es
https://url-to-laravel/es/test

// Set application language to English or Spanish (depending on browsers default locales)
// if nothing found set to default locale
https://url-to-laravel
https://url-to-laravel/test

The package sets your application locale App::getLocale() according to your url. The locale may then be used for Laravel's localization features.

You may add middleware to your group like this:

Route::group(
[
	'prefix' => LaravelLocalization::setLocale(),
	'middleware' => [ 'localeSessionRedirect', 'localizationRedirect', 'localeViewPath' ]
], function(){ //...
});

1.: It is strongly recommended to use a redirecting middleware. Urls without locale should only be used to determine browser/default locale and to redirect to the localized url. Otherwise, when search engine robots crawl for example https://url-to-laravel/test they may get different language content for each visit. Also having multiple urls for the same content creates a SEO duplicate-content issue.

2.: It is strongly recommended to localize your links, even if you use a redirect middleware. Otherwise, you will cause at least one redirect each time a user clicks on a link. Also, any action url from a post form must be localized, to prevent that it gets redirected to a get request.

The following redirection middleware depends on the settings of hideDefaultLocaleInURL and useAcceptLanguageHeader in config/laravellocalization.php:

Whenever a locale is present in the url, it will be stored in the session by this middleware.

If there is no locale present in the url, then this middleware will check the following

• If no locale is saved in session and useAcceptLanguageHeader is set to true, compute locale from browser and redirect to url with locale.
• If a locale is saved in session redirect to url with locale, unless its the default locale and hideDefaultLocaleInURL is set to true.

For example, if a user navigates to https://url-to-laravel/test and en is the current locale, it would redirect him automatically to https://url-to-laravel/en/test.

Similar to LocaleSessionRedirect, but it stores value in a cookie instead of a session.

Whenever a locale is present in the url, it will be stored in the cookie by this middleware.

In there is no locale present in the url, then this middleware will check the following

• If no locale is saved in cookie and useAcceptLanguageHeader is set to true, compute locale from browser and redirect to url with locale.
• If a locale is saved in cookie redirect to url with locale, unless its the default locale and hideDefaultLocaleInURL is set to true.

For example, if a user navigates to https://url-to-laravel/test and de is the current locale, it would redirect him automatically to https://url-to-laravel/de/test.

When the default locale is present in the url and hideDefaultLocaleInURL is set to true, then the middleware redirects to the url without locale.

For example, if es is the default locale, then https://url-to-laravel/es/test would be redirected to https://url-to-laravel/test and theApp::getLocale() would be set to es.

This package comes with a bunch of helpers.

Localized URLS taken into account route model binding when generating the localized route, aswell as the hideDefaultLocaleInURL and Translated Routes settings.

    // If current locale is Spanish, it returns `/es/test`
    <a href="{{ LaravelLocalization::localizeUrl('/test') }}">@lang('Follow this link')</a>

Get current URL in specific locale:

// Returns current url with English locale.
{{ LaravelLocalization::getLocalizedURL('en') }}

Returns a URL clean of any localization.

// Returns /about
{{ LaravelLocalization::getNonLocalizedURL('/es/about') }}

Returns a route, localized to the desired locale. If the translation key does not exist in the locale given, this function will return false.

// Returns /es/acerca
{{ LaravelLocalization::getURLFromRouteNameTranslated('es', 'routes.about') }}

Example of a localized link using routes with attributes

// An array of attributes can be provided.
// Returns /en/archive/ghosts, /fr/archive/fantômes, /pt/arquivo/fantasmas, etc.
<a href="{{ LaravelLocalization::getURLFromRouteNameTranslated( App::currentLocale(), 'routes.archive', array('category' => 'ghosts')) }}">Ghost Stories</a>

Return all supported locales and their properties as an array.

{{ LaravelLocalization::getSupportedLocales() }}

Return all supported locales but in the order specified in the configuration file. You can use this function to print locales in the language selector.

{{ LaravelLocalization::getLocalesOrder() }}

Return an array with all the keys for the supported locales.

{{ LaravelLocalization::getSupportedLanguagesKeys() }}

Return the key of the current locale.

{{ LaravelLocalization::getCurrentLocale() }}

Return current locale's name as string (English/Spanish/Arabic/ ..etc).

{{ LaravelLocalization::getCurrentLocaleName() }}

Return current locale's native name as string (English/Español/عربى/ ..etc).

{{ LaravelLocalization::getCurrentLocaleNative() }}

Return current locale's regional name as string (en_GB/en_US/fr_FR/ ..etc).

{{ LaravelLocalization::getCurrentLocaleRegional() }}

Return current locale's direction as string (ltr/rtl).

{{ LaravelLocalization::getCurrentLocaleDirection() }}

Return the ISO 15924 code for the current locale script as a string; "Latn", "Cyrl", "Arab", etc.

{{ LaravelLocalization::getCurrentLocaleScript() }}

Register the middleware LaravelLocalizationViewPath to set current locale as view-base-path.

Now you can wrap your views in language-based folders like the translation files.

resources/views/en/, resources/views/fr, ...

As you can modify the supportedLocales even by renaming their keys, it is possible to use the string uk instead of en-GB to provide custom lang url segments. Of course, you need to prevent any collisions with already existing keys and should stick to the convention as long as possible. But if you are using such a custom key, you have to store your mapping to the localesMapping array. This localesMapping is needed to enable the LanguageNegotiator to correctly assign the desired locales based on HTTP Accept Language Header. Here is a quick example how to map HTTP Accept Language Header 'en-GB' to url segment 'uk':

// config/laravellocalization.php

'localesMapping' => [
	'en-GB' => 'uk'
],

After that https://url-to-laravel/en-GB/a/b/c becomes https://url-to-laravel/uk/a/b/c.

LaravelLocalization::getLocalizedURL('en-GB', 'a/b/c'); // https://url-to-laravel/uk/a/b/c
LaravelLocalization::getLocalizedURL('uk', 'a/b/c'); // https://url-to-laravel/uk/a/b/c

If you're supporting multiple locales in your project you will probably want to provide the users with a way to change language. Below is a simple example of blade template code you can use to create your own language selector.

<ul>
    @foreach(LaravelLocalization::getSupportedLocales() as $localeCode => $properties)
        <li>
            <a rel="alternate" hreflang="{{ $localeCode }}" href="{{ LaravelLocalization::getLocalizedURL($localeCode, null, [], true) }}">
                {{ $properties['native'] }}
            </a>
        </li>
    @endforeach
</ul>

Here default language will be forced in getLocalizedURL() to be present in the URL even hideDefaultLocaleInURL = true.

Note that Route Model Binding is supported.

You may translate your routes. For example, https://url/en/about and https://url/es/acerca (acerca is about in spanish) or https://url/en/article/important-article and https://url/es/articulo/important-article (article is articulo in spanish) would be redirected to the same controller/view as follows:

It is necessary that at least the localize middleware in loaded in your Route::group middleware (See installation instruction).

For each language, add a routes.php into resources/lang/**/routes.php folder. The file contains an array with all translatable routes. For example, like this:

Keep in mind: starting from Laravel 9, the resources/lang folder is now located in the root project folder (lang). If your project has lang folder in the root, you must add a routes.php into lang/**/routes.php folder.

<?php
// resources/lang/en/routes.php
return [
    "about"    =>  "about",
    "article"  =>  "article/{article}",
];

<?php
// resources/lang/es/routes.php
return [
    "about"    =>  "acerca",
    "article"  =>  "articulo/{article}",
];

You may add the routes in routes/web.php like this:

Route::group(['prefix' => LaravelLocalization::setLocale(),
              'middleware' => [ 'localize' ]], function () {

    Route::get(LaravelLocalization::transRoute('routes.about'), function () {
        return view('about');
    });

    Route::get(LaravelLocalization::transRoute('routes.article'), function (\App\Article $article) {
        return $article;
    });

    //,...
});

Once files are saved, you can access https://url/en/about , https://url/es/acerca , https://url/en/article/important-article and https://url/es/articulo/important-article without any problem.

Maybe you noticed in the previous example the English slug in the Spanish url:

https://url/es/articulo/important-article

It is possible to have translated slugs, for example like this:

https://url/en/article/important-change
https://url/es/articulo/cambio-importante

However, in order to do this, each article must have many slugs (one for each locale). Its up to you how you want to implement this relation. The only requirement for translatable route parameters is, that the relevant model implements the interface LocalizedUrlRoutable.

To implement \Mcamara\LaravelLocalization\Interfaces\LocalizedUrlRoutable, one has to create the function getLocalizedRouteKey($locale), which must return for a given locale the translated slug. In the above example, inside the model article, getLocalizedRouteKey('en') should return important-change and getLocalizedRouteKey('es') should return cambio-importante.

To use route-model-binding, one should overwrite the function resolveRouteBinding($slug) in the model. The function should return the model that belongs to the translated slug $slug. For example:

public function resolveRouteBinding($slug)
{
        return static::findByLocalizedSlug($slug)->first() ?? abort(404);
}

You may want to checkout this video which demonstrates how one may set up translatable route parameters.

You can capture the URL parameters during translation if you wish to translate them too. To do so, just create an event listener for the routes.translation event like so:

Event::listen('routes.translation', function($locale, $attributes)
{
	// Do your magic

	return $attributes;
});

Be sure to pass the locale and the attributes as parameters to the closure. You may also use Event Subscribers, see: https://laravel.com/docs/events#event-subscribers

To cache your routes, use:

php artisan route:trans:cache

... instead of the normal route:cache command. Using artisan route:cache will not work correctly!

For the route caching solution to work, it is required to make a minor adjustment to your application route provision.

before laravel 11

In your App's RouteServiceProvider, use the LoadsTranslatedCachedRoutes trait:

<?php
class RouteServiceProvider extends ServiceProvider
{
    use \Mcamara\LaravelLocalization\Traits\LoadsTranslatedCachedRoutes;

after laravel 11

In your App's AppServiceProvider, use the CachedTranslatedRouteLoader class in register method:

<?php
class AppServiceProvider extends ServiceProvider
{  
    use \Mcamara\LaravelLocalization\Traits\LoadsTranslatedCachedRoutes;
    /**
     * Bootstrap any application services.
     */
    public function boot(): void
    {
        RouteServiceProvider::loadCachedRoutesUsing(fn() => $this->loadCachedRoutes());
        ...
    }   

For more details see here.

This may happen if you do not localize your action route that is inside your Routes::group. This may cause a redirect, which then changes the post request into a get request. To prevent that, simply use the localize helper.

For example, if you use Auth::routes() and put them into your Route::group Then

<form action="/logout" method="POST">
<button>Logout</button>
</form>

will not work. Instead, one has to use

<form action="{{  \LaravelLocalization::localizeURL('/logout') }} " method="POST">
<button>Logout</button>
</form>

Another way to solve this is to put http method to config to 'laravellocalization.httpMethodsIgnored' to prevent of processing this type of requests

If you do not localize your post url and use a redirect middleware, then the post request gets redirected as a get request. If you have not defined such a get route, you will cause this exception.

To localize your post url see the example in POST is not working.

This also happens if you did not localize your post url. If you don't localize your post url, the default locale is set while validating, and when returning to back() it shows the validation message in default locale.

To localize your post url see the example in POST is not working.

During the test setup, the called route is not yet known. This means no language can be set. When a request is made during a test, this results in a 404 - without the prefix set the localized route does not seem to exist.

To fix this, you can use this function to manually set the language prefix:

// TestCase.php
protected function refreshApplicationWithLocale($locale)
{
    self::tearDown();
    putenv(LaravelLocalization::ENV_ROUTE_KEY . '=' . $locale);
    self::setUp();
}

protected function tearDown(): void
{
    putenv(LaravelLocalization::ENV_ROUTE_KEY);
    parent::tearDown();
}

// YourTest.php
public function testBasicTest()
{
    $this->refreshApplicationWithLocale('en');
    // Testing code
}

• Adam Nielsen (iwasherefirst2)

Ask mcamara if you want to be one of them!

View changelog here -> changelog

Laravel Localization is an open-sourced laravel package licensed under the MIT license