Using cookies in laravel to get referral code id? - laravel

Question

I have generated a referral code for each user on my platform, and would to use cookies to track if a new user has signed up through someone else(aka. they got referred).
I can generate a url fine, i.e., http://localhost:8888/Test/public/?ref=111222333444
But the cookie doesn't appear to be storing and translating back to my database when I use the code to sign up as a new user
What am I missing?
<?php
namespace App\Http\Middleware;
use Illuminate\Http\Response;
use Closure;
class CheckReferral
{
public function handle($request, Closure $next)
{
if( $request->hasCookie('referral')) {
return $next($request);
}
else {
if( $request->query('ref') ) {
print "yes cookie detected";
return redirect($request->fullUrl())->withCookie(cookie()->forever('referral', $request->query('ref')));
}
}
return $next($request);
}
}

Answer 1

Okay this was my dumb mistake - I overlooked adding the Middleware to my route. Solved it simply by doing this:
use App\Http\Middleware\CheckReferral;
Route::get('/', function () {
return view('welcome');
})->middleware(CheckReferral::class);

Answer 2

Best way to use middleware is to add it in Kernal class by setting it against routeMiddleware array e.g
$routeMiddleware = [
'auth' => \Laravel\Http\Middleware\Authenticate::class,
'guest' => \Laravel\Http\Middleware\RedirectIfAuthenticated::class,
'throttle' => \Illuminate\Routing\Middleware\ThrottleRequests::class,
...
'check-referral' => \Laravel\Http\Middleware\CheckReferral::class,
];
and then assign the route e.g
Route::get('/', function () {
//
})->middleware('check-referral');
Hope this will help