Zend custom controller helper

An action helper is a class that plugs into the controller to provide services to actions. They expand a controller’s functionality without using inheritance and so can be reused across multiple controllers and projects. To add Zend custom controller helper we can add it in library.

Here I am creating a custom library for our purpose with the namespace ‘App’, so need to add it in application.ini to autoload these.

autoloadernamespaces[] = "App_"

For example I am creating an helper for action in App/Action/Helper so the prefix for the helper is App_Action_Helper. We need to initiate these action helper prefix by writing the following code in our bootstrap file.

protected function _initActionHelpers()
{
	Zend_Controller_Action_HelperBroker::addPrefix("App_Action_Helper");
}

Now we can create a custom helper file of Common functions like as below.

class App_Action_Helper_CommonFunctions extends Zend_Controller_Action_Helper_Abstract
{
     public function pr($data){
	echo '<pre>';
	print_r($data);
	echo '</pre>';
     }
}

App_Action_Helper_CommonFunctions is a child class of Zend_Controller_Action_Helper_Abstract that contain helper
functions to control the program flow.

For example we have created a common function pr to check what are the elements of varible $data. We can call this function in controller like as below:

$this->_helper->CommonFunctions->pr($data);

Some other helpers that are already in zend framework to help in controller actions:

To set a layout according to the action of controller

$this->_helper->layout()->setLayout('user');

To redirect within controller action

$this->_helper->redirector('action','controller','module'); 

Helper to disable layout and set no view to render

$this->_helper->layout->disableLayout();
$this->_helper->viewRenderer->setNoRender();

Hope this will help you!