Using forceRootUrl() breaks some routing - laravel

Question

I have my Laravel app running from a subdirectory, so in order to be able to use the URL helper like this: {{ url('users') }} instead of like this {{ url('subdirectory/users') }} I use the forceRouteUrl() method in my AppServiceProvider.php file. It looks like this:
public function boot()
{
URL::forceRootUrl(Config::get('app.url'));
...
And my .env: APP_URL=http://app.dev/subdirectory
So far so good, except when returning routes. For example I have a sorting method that does this:
function sort_schedule($column, $order)
{
return route('schedule', [
'sortBy' => $column,
'sortOrder' => $order,
]
);
}
But the link it generates is this: http://app.dev/subdirectory/subdirectory/...
The same thing happens when I use Kyslik's Column Sortable package.
How can I fix this?

Answer 1

It seems that while other helpers like url() or asset() don't have this issue, the route() helper tends to duplicate the subpath when laravel isn't accessible directly from the site root and forceRootUrl() is used.
I'm using laravel 5.4 but this problem is present on previous versions too.
To solve this issue i found three possible solutions:
Use url() instead of route() and manually create your urls
Everytime you use route() remember to pass false as the third parameter, it will use relative paths that don't have this issue
Override the default route() helper with a custom one
I opted for the third option and created a CustomHelper.php file that contains my new route() helper.
Here are the instructions on how to override default helpers:
https://laracasts.com/discuss/channels/general-discussion/override-functions-in-supporthelpersphp
Inside my CustomHelper.php file I added this
function route($name, $parameters = [], $absolute = true)
{
$appUrl = config('app.url'); // in your case: http://app.dev
$appUrlSuffix = config('app.url_suffix'); // in your case: subdirectory
// Additional check, do the workaround only when a suffix is present and only when urls are absolute
if ($appUrlSuffix && $absolute) {
// Add the relative path to the app root url
$relativePath = app('url')->route($name, $parameters, false);
$url = $appUrl.$relativePath;
} else {
// This is the default behavior of route() you can find in laravel\vendor\laravel\framework\src\Illuminate\Foundation\helpers.php
$url = app('url')->route($name, $parameters, $absolute);
}
return $url;
}
The app.url_suffix is a custom variable that i defined in config/app.php
'url_suffix' => env('APP_URL_SUFFIX', null),
and in the .env config file
APP_URL_SUFFIX=subdirectory