Magento Developper’s Guide (Lesson 12) – The Helpers in magento

This tutorial is the 12th of many tutorials , you will now learn how to create your own helper in Magento. If you have not read the first articles yet, I strongly advise you to do so. We have previously created a plugin, we will now learn how to use a helper!


What is a Helper?

As the name implies a « helper » is something that is right for you ! It is an object that will contain practical functions for you and you can call it from anywhere, you just load your helper to use it. For example:

$helper = Mage::helper('monhelper');

 

Note that this call is actually equivalent to:

 

$helper = Mage::helper('monhelper/data');

 

Indeed, it is the default helper « data » wich is called.


Create your own Helper

As you are now used to, it starts by declaring it in the config.xml of your plugin, do that in <global> and after </blocks>

<helpers>

   <test>

          <class>Easylife_Test_Helper</class>

    </test>

</helpers>

 

 

Then creates the folder and the file app/code/local/Easylife/Test/Helper/data.php function wich will contains the function bytwo($ nbr) with a number as an argument and returns that number multiplied by two. A helper is an object that extends the core class Mage_Core_Helper_Abstract.

 

<?php

class Easylife_Test_Helper_Data extends Mage_Core_Helper_Abstract{

   public function bytwo($nbr){

        return $nbr*2;

   }

}

 

Now in/app/code/local/Easylife/Test/Block/monblock.php we change the function by:

 

<?php

class Easylife_Test_Block_Monblock extends Mage_Core_Block_Template

{

      public function methodblock()

      {

            $helper = Mage::helper('test');

            return '2*2 = '.$helper->bytwo(2);

      }

}

 

Now when we go on yoursite.com/index.php/test/index/, we see that it works!

Here we are ! you understand how to create a helper on magento, I invite you to practice, the only way to improve yourself If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment.

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