Documentation Issue: $this->middleware() causes "undefined method" error in Laravel

[rodrigo1608]

Documentation Issue: $this->middleware() causes "undefined method" error in Laravel

Hello,

I recently encountered an issue while following the JWT Auth documentation for Laravel. Specifically, in the section where the AuthController is implemented, the provided example uses $this->middleware in the constructor:

<?php

namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Auth;
use App\Http\Controllers\Controller;

class AuthController extends Controller
{
    public function __construct()
    {
        $this->middleware('auth:api', ['except' => ['login']]);
    }
}

When running this code in my Laravel environment, I encountered the following error:

Call to undefined method App\Http\Controllers\AuthController::middleware()

After investigating, I discovered that the issue occurs because the Controller class being extended in the example refers to App\Http\Controllers\Controller, which doesn’t have the middleware() method. To fix this, I had to update my controller to extend the Illuminate\Routing\Controller class directly, like this:

class AuthController extends \Illuminate\Routing\Controller
{
    public function __construct()
    {
        $this->middleware('auth:api', ['except' => ['login']]);
    }
}

It seems the documentation assumes the base Controller already provides the necessary functionality, which might not always be the case depending on the Laravel version or environment configuration.

Environment Details:

Laravel Version: 11
PHP Version: 8.3

Thank you for this fantastic package! I hope this feedback helps improve the onboarding experience for other users.

[CWard1975]

Another solution is to change the Controller.php file to:

use Illuminate\Routing\Controller as BaseController;

abstract class Controller extends BaseController
{
    //
}

This way all controllers will inherent Illuminate\Routing\Controller

[DrakkoFire]

With Laravel 11 things have changed a bit, now to set your middlewares inside the controllers you need to do as follows:

<?php
 
namespace App\Http\Controllers;
 
use App\Http\Controllers\Controller;
use Illuminate\Routing\Controllers\HasMiddleware;
use Illuminate\Routing\Controllers\Middleware;
 
class UserController extends Controller implements HasMiddleware
{
    /**
     * Get the middleware that should be assigned to the controller.
     */
    public static function middleware(): array
    {
        return [
            'auth',
            new Middleware('log', only: ['index']),
            new Middleware('subscribed', except: ['store']),
        ];
    }
 
    // ...
}

Here's the link for the Laravel documentation on how to use the middlewares inside the controllers. I personally prefer using groups in the routes directly, for example, my routes are as follow:

Route::group(['prefix' => 'auth'], function () {
    Route::post('/register', [AuthController::class, 'register']);
    Route::post('/login', [AuthController::class, 'login']);
    Route::group(['middleware' => 'jwt.verify'], function () {
        Route::post('/refresh', [AuthController::class, 'refreshToken']);
        Route::post('/logout', [AuthController::class, 'logout']);
        Route::get('/user', [AuthController::class, 'getUser']);
    });
});

This way I have it organized in my API routes file, and it's easy to understand.