Is there a difference between Lang::get('locale') and __('locale') in Laravel? - multilingual

Question

In Laravel 5.7 the docs say to use the following syntax to retrieve locales
{{ __ ('my.locale')}}
but I noticed
{{Lang::get('my.locale')}}
works too, and it's in fact what was also used in previous versions.
Is there a fundamental difference between this two, or just the syntax changed?

Answer 1

The main difference is that __() and #lang will check for json translation files in addition to your php language files. Other than that, the syntax hasn't changed; they all defer to the same \Illuminate\Translation\Translator::get() method eventually.
These will all work from a Blade view:
#lang('...')
{{ __('...') }}
{{ trans('...') }}
{{ Lang::trans('...') }}
{{ Lang::get('...') }}
{{ app('translator')->get('...') }}
If you use the #lang Blade directive, keep in mind that it doesn't escape htmlentities, which means your translation strings would need to be stored in their escaped form (e.g. <> instead of <>). None of the other functions escape htmlentities either, but using #lang is the only option in that list that doesn't pass the string through the handlebars {{ }}, which is where the escape function is called. It may not be common to have html special characters in a translation string, and translation strings don't usually come from user input (so cross-site scripting isn't an issue), but it's worth knowing.
If you want to dive deeper, this is the difference with __() (as of Laravel 5.8):
/**
* Translate the given message.
*
* #param string $key
* #param array $replace
* #param string $locale
* #return string|array|null
*/
function __($key, $replace = [], $locale = null)
{
return app('translator')->getFromJson($key, $replace, $locale);
}
You can see it's using getFromJson() instead of get(). However, getFromJson() falls back to get() if it didn't find anything in your json files:
// If we can't find a translation for the JSON key, we will attempt to translate it
// using the typical translation file. This way developers can always just use a
// helper such as __ instead of having to pick between trans or __ with views.
if (! isset($line)) {
$fallback = $this->get($key, $replace, $locale);
if ($fallback !== $key) {
return $fallback;
}
}
Then there's trans(), which is nothing more than an alias for get():
public function trans($key, array $replace = [], $locale = null)
{
return $this->get($key, $replace, $locale);
}