Setting values at run time for APP_LOCALE defined in .env file in Lumen

Question

I started learning the Lumen micro-framework recently and I am in need to change during runtime the value for the APP_LOCALE key that is defined in my .env file. My goal is to switch the language at run time to print different translations of a certain String defined in my languages files.

In the Lumen documentation it is written:

To set configuration values at runtime, pass an array to the config helper

So I tried the fallowing in a test controller:

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\App;
use Laravel\Lumen\Routing\Controller as BaseController;

class Controller extends BaseController{
    public function show_test(){
        echo(trans('testfile.greetings'));
        config(['app.LOCALE' => 'en']);
        echo(trans('testfile.greetings'));
    }
}

In my .env file my "default" APP_LOCALE is set to 'fr' and the result of calling this controller print my string in french twice instead of the expected one time in french then one time in english.

How can I change the value at runtime ?

Answer 1

Apparently someone else posted the same question a few days after me and got the answer which is:

app('translator')->setLocale('en');

Answer 2

The key in config/app.php is locale, not LOCALE, so you want config(['app.locale' => 'en']). The name in .env is not necessarily the name in the config folder's files.