Setting the route parameter in the middleware in Laravel - laravel

Question

I am developing a Laravel application. I am doing route model binding in the middleware.
I have the routes like this
Route::group([ 'prefix' => 'department/{department}', 'middleware' => [ 'auth.department' ] ], function () {
Route::post('employee/create', 'EmployeeController#store')->name('employees.store');
});
This is my auth.department middleware (AuthDepartment)
class AuthDepartment
{
public function handle($request, Closure $next)
{
$department = Department::find($request->department);
//do something with the department
//I want to set the $department (Department model) in the place of {department} in the route.
return $next($request);
}
}
This is EmployeeController
class EmployeeController extends Controller {
public function store($department)
{
}
}
As you can see in the code, I am using $department parameter to get the department id from the route. But instead of getting the integer as the parameter, I want to bind the model like this.
class EmployeeController extends Controller {
public function store(Department $department)
{
}
}
With my current code, it is not working. I tried to set the route parameter in the middleware as follow to match (bind model) the value in the action.
$request->route()->setParameter('department', $department)
But it is just not working. How can I set/ replace the route parameter with a model in the middleware which can be binded to the parameter in the action of the controller? Is it possible? What could be the better approach?
If I used
$request->route()->setParameter('department', $department)
to set the parameter, I cannot set type in the action of the controller like this.
store(Department $department)
But this is fine
store(Department $department)
But I want this
store(Department $department)

Answer 1

Laravel already has this built in. It is called Route Model Binding.
https://laravel.com/docs/5.7/routing#route-model-binding
Remove the middleware and instead keep your controller as it is. Laravel will automatically use the ID in the request to find the model and give you an instance of it. If the model cannot be found, Laravel will throw a 404 response for you.