How to Create and Pass data to Template in CakePHP 4

Template in the CakePHP 4 is a .php file where define the HTML layout of the page. Template files automatically get loaded on the page. For this need to create files in a specific pattern.

From Controller, you can pass data to the template file.

In this tutorial, I show how you can create template files and pass values from the controller to the template in CakePHP 4 project.

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Contents

1. Create Controller
2. Create Template
3. Output
4. Conclusion

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1. Create Controller

Create a HomeController.php file in src/Controller/ folder.

Create HomeController Class that extends AppController.

In the class create 2 methods –

• index() – Assign a string value to $page and $content variables. To pass this value to the template use $this->set(). It takes an Array value. compact() function converts passed variable names to an Array in which the key is same as the variable name.
• aboutus() – Assign a string value to $page variable. Initialize $data['page'] with $page. Pass $data to $this->set(). In the template file reading the value is the same as the above-specified way.

CakePHP automatically converts the method names as a request parameter.

This will create the following requests –

• index – http://localhost:8765/home or http://localhost:8765/home/index
• aboutus – http://localhost:8765/home/aboutus

Completed Code

<?php
declare(strict_types=1);

namespace App\Controller;

class HomeController extends AppController
{

     public function index(){
          $page = "Homepage";
          $content = "Welcome to Makitweb";

          // Pass value to template
          $this->set(compact('page','content'));
     }

     public function aboutus(){
          $page = "About US";

          // Pass value to template
          $data['page'] = $page;
          $this->set($data);
     }

}

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2. Create Template

Create a new Home folder in templates/ folder. Now in the Home folder create index.php and aboutus.php file.

Here, make sure the folder name is the same as the controller name – Home and the file name is the same as the method names created in the controller – index(), and aboutus().

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templates/Home/index.php

In the page just create a <h1 > and <p > tag. You can either read the values passed from the controller using <?php echo $page ?> or <?= $page ?>.

Completed Code

<h1><?= $page ?></h1>
<p><?= $content ?></p>

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templates/Home/aboutus.php

In this file also create <h1> and <p> tags. I displayed static value in the <p > tag and display passed value in <h1 > tag – <?= $page ?>.

Completed Code

<h1><?= $page ?></h1>
<p>About us page content</p>

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4. Output

Home page (http://localhost:8765/home/index)

About us page (http://localhost:8765/home/aboutus)

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5. Conclusion

You don’t need to call template files explicitly from the controller. So the naming of the files and folder is important while creating a template.

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