Laravel - Session - The Global Session Helper

You may also use the global session PHP function to retrieve and store data in the session. When the session helper is called with a single, string argument, it will return the value of that session key. When the helper is called with an array of key / value pairs, those values will be stored in the session:

    
    Route::get('/home', function () {
        // Retrieve a piece of data from the session...
        $value = session('key');
    
        // Specifying a default value...
        $value = session('key', 'default');
    
        // Store a piece of data in the session...
        session(['key' => 'value']);
    });
	

There is little practical difference between using the session via an HTTP request instance versus using the global session helper. Both methods are testable via the assertSessionHas method which is available in all of your test cases.