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Inside this article we will see CakePHP 4 How to create custom helper. This tutorial contains all basics about creating a custom helper in cakephp application.

Helpers are those functions and methods which helps to complete a specific task of application. In CakePHP there are many default helpers available as Html, URL, Form, etc. To create a user defined helper in cakephp we need to follow some basic steps.

We need custom helper when we want to create some functions which we can re-use through out in the application.

Learn More –

Let’s get started.

CakePHP 4 Installation

To create a CakePHP project, run this command into your shell or terminal. Make sure composer should be installed in your system.

$ composer create-project --prefer-dist cakephp/app:~4.0 mycakephp

Above command will creates a project with the name called mycakephp.

Custom Helper Basic Steps

In CakePHP helpers are provided by class files. There are few basic steps we need to follow to create custom helper:

Helper class files should be put inside /src/View/Helper folder.
Helper class files should be suffixed with Helper keyword. For Example DataHelper.php.
To load helper we use like this $this->loadHelper(‘Data’) and load into AppView.php from /src/View.

Create Custom Helper

We will create a helper which works with string values. Create a file StringHelper.php file inside /src/View/Helper.

<?php

namespace App\View\Helper;

use Cake\View\Helper;

class StringHelper extends Helper
{
    public function upperCase($string)
    {
        return strtoupper($string);
    }

    public function mailExample($email)
    {
        return str_replace("gmail.com", "example.net", $email);
    }
}

Here, inside this custom helper we have to methods.

upperCase() which converts string from any case to uppercase.
mailExample() method Replace gmail.com to example.net of any email address.

Load Helper

By default CakePHP load it’s defined helpers automatically. To load custom helpers we will use AppView.php from /src/View folder.

Open AppView.php and add this line to load helper.

<?php

declare(strict_types=1);

namespace App\View;

use Cake\View\View;

class AppView extends View
{
    public function initialize(): void
    {
        $this->loadHelper("String"); // Loads StringHelper.php
    }
}

Now, we will able to use String helper into template files.

Create Controller & Template

Open project into terminal and run this bake console command.

$ bin/cake bake controller Site --no-actions

It will create SiteController.php file inside /src/Controller folder. Open file and write this code into it.

<?php

declare(strict_types=1);

namespace App\Controller;

class SiteController extends AppController
{
    public function test()
    {
        //
    }
}

Create a folder called Site inside /templates folder. Create a file with name test.php into /templates/Site folder.

We can use helper and it’s methods into template files.

Custom Helper Usage

Open test.php and try these codes into it.

Use: upperCase()

<?php

$string = "Sample string";
echo $this->String->upperCase($string);

//Output: SAMPLE STRING

Use: mailExample()

<?php

$email = "sanjaykumar@gmail.com";
echo $this->String->mailExample($email);

//Output: sanjaykumar@example.net

We hope this article helped you to learn about CakePHP 4 How To Create Custom Helper Tutorial in a very detailed way.

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