In Laravel, the best way to pass different types of flash messages in the session

One solution would be to flash two variables into the session:

1. The message itself
2. The "class" of your alert

for example:

Session::flash('message', 'This is a message!'); 
Session::flash('alert-class', 'alert-danger'); 

Then in your view:

@if(Session::has('message'))
<p class="alert {{ Session::get('alert-class', 'alert-info') }}">{{ Session::get('message') }}</p>
@endif

Note I've put a default value into the Session::get(). that way you only need to override it if the warning should be something other than the alert-info class.

(that is a quick example, and untested :) )

In your view:

<div class="flash-message">
  @foreach (['danger', 'warning', 'success', 'info'] as $msg)
    @if(Session::has('alert-' . $msg))
    <p class="alert alert-{{ $msg }}">{{ Session::get('alert-' . $msg) }}</p>
    @endif
  @endforeach
</div>

Then set a flash message in the controller:

Session::flash('alert-danger', 'danger');
Session::flash('alert-warning', 'warning');
Session::flash('alert-success', 'success');
Session::flash('alert-info', 'info');

My way is to always Redirect::back() or Redirect::to():

Redirect::back()->with('message', 'error|There was an error...');

Redirect::back()->with('message', 'message|Record updated.');

Redirect::to('/')->with('message', 'success|Record updated.');

I have a helper function to make it work for me, usually this is in a separate service:

function displayAlert()
{
      if (Session::has('message'))
      {
         list($type, $message) = explode('|', Session::get('message'));

         $type = $type == 'error' : 'danger';
         $type = $type == 'message' : 'info';

         return sprintf('<div class="alert alert-%s">%s</div>', $type, message);
      }

      return '';
}

And in my view or layout I just do

{{ displayAlert() }}