How can I require authentication in Laravel 5 on a conditional basis? - php

Question

I have an application which uses Laravel 5's out of the box authentication. I need to require authentication on the show method of a controller ONLY when the field called "approved" is equal to 1.
How can I require authentication using middlewares on a conditional basis such that unauthenticated users can access entries whose approved column is equal to 1, but only authenticated users can see entries where approved is equal to 0.
My constructor currently looks like this:
public function __construct(){
$this->middleware('auth', ['only' => ['edit', 'destroy', 'approve', 'markRecovered']]);
}

Answer 1

You may create your own middleware instead of using Laravel's default auth middleware and in that case, you may create a middleware such as 'checkApproval' using something like this:
php artisan make:middleware checkApproval
Then in your app/Http/Middleware directory you'll find the new middleware created and it'll contain the basic structure including handle method, so now you may erite code inside this middleware's handle method to check the user's state and the approved field and then either redirect to login page if condition doesn't match or allow access. here is a basic idea:
use Illuminate\Contracts\Auth\Guard;
class CheckPermission implements Middleware {
protected $auth;
public function __construct(Guard $auth)
{
$this->auth = $auth;
}
public function handle($request, Closure $next)
{
if($this->auth->guest() && !$this->checkApproval($request))
{
return redirect('login');
}
return $next($request);
}
protected function checkApproval($request)
{
// Get the auth/logged in user
// $user = $request->user();
// Get a parameter from route
// $id = $request->route()->parameter('id')
// Check the approved field here and return true or false
}
}
Now assign the middleware a short-hand key in your app/Http/Kernel.php file. By default, the $routeMiddleware property of this class contains entries for the middleware included with Laravel. To add your own, simply append it to this list and assign it a key to use in your route/controller, for example, checkApproval so in the place of auth you may use checkApproval for the the method view in your controller.
This is an abstract idea, but you can implement one of your own now so check the documentation for more information.