Helpers API

OwnWork provides global helper functions through bundle/Helper.php. The file is registered through Composer's autoload.files, so these helpers are available throughout the application.

`approot()`

Returns the application root directory.

$root = approot();

Use it when constructing paths relative to the application:

$viewPath = approot() . "/resources/views/";
$storagePath = approot() . "/storage/";

`env()`

Reads or writes an environment variable.

$value = env("APP_NAME");

The helper accepts:

env($data, $get = true);

For reading:

$appName = env("APP_NAME");

For writing:

env("APP_NAME=My Application", false);

OwnWork's current helper delegates to PHP's getenv() and putenv().

`out()`

Escapes a string for HTML output.

echo out($value);

It uses:

htmlspecialchars($data)

This is useful when displaying a value that should be treated as HTML text rather than markup.

`view()`

Renders a view through Coretex.

view("home.temp.php");

Data can be passed as the second argument:

view("users/index.temp.php", [
    "users" => $users
]);

The helper delegates to Dhruv125\Coretex\Viewer\View::instantView().

`getTempTranspiled()`

Resolves and includes a transpiled template.

getTempTranspiled("header.temp.php");

It accepts:

getTempTranspiled(
    string $string,
    bool $needPath = true,
    array $args = []
);

The helper delegates to Coretex's View::includeTemp(). It is used by the template system for @@includeTemp(...).

`comp()`

Renders a component.

comp("button");

Arguments can be supplied:

comp("button", [
    "text" => "Save"
]);

The helper accepts an optional component directory:

comp(
    "button",
    ["text" => "Save"],
    "/path/to/components/"
);

When no directory is supplied, OwnWork looks under:

resources/views/component/

The supplied arguments are extracted into the component before the component file is required. A missing component throws an ErrorException.

The template directive:

@comp("button", [
    "text" => "Save"
])

uses this helper.

`url()`

Provides information about the current request URL.

Get the current path:

url("get");

Get the complete request URI:

url("getFull");

The current OwnWork helper supports these actions:

get
getFull

For example:

$currentPath = url("get");
$fullUrl = url("getFull");

url("get") resolves the path from $_SERVER["REQUEST_URI"], while url("getFull") returns the complete request URI.

`pre()`

Prints a value inside a <pre> element.

pre($data);

It internally uses print_r():

pre($users);

This is primarily useful for simple debugging during development.

`get_db_instance()`

Returns a database instance when the optional delight-im/db dependency is available and configured.

$db = get_db_instance();

The helper checks for the database package and supports the configured:

DB_DRIVER=sql

or:

DB_DRIVER=sqlite

For SQL configuration it reads values such as:

DB_HOST
DB_NAME
DB_USER
DB_PASS

For SQLite, OwnWork creates the database under:

storage/db/

when required.

This helper is optional application infrastructure rather than a required part of OwnWork's MVC flow.

`clean()`

The current OwnWork helper also provides:

clean($value);

It trims a string and returns null when the resulting value is empty.

$value = clean($input);

Its behavior is equivalent to:

trim($value) !== ""
    ? trim($value)
    : null;

Checks whether an array contains an empty/falsy element.

if (isArrElemEmpty($values)) {
    // ...
}

It returns:

true

when any element evaluates as falsy, otherwise:

false

Separates an array into elements that are considered empty and elements that contain values.

[$filled, $empty] = separateEmptyElements($values);

The returned array contains:

[
    $fullArray,
    $emptyKeys
]

For example:

[$full, $empty] = separateEmptyElements([
    "name" => "Dhruv",
    "email" => "",
]);

The first element contains the non-empty entries and the second contains the keys of empty entries.

`printArr()`

Prints an array inside a <pre> element.

printArr($array);

It is a convenience debugging helper around print_r().

`isUrl()`

Checks whether the current URL matches a supplied URL.

isUrl("/users");

The second argument determines which url() value is compared:

isUrl("/users", "get");

Internally it compares the supplied value with:

url($action)

OwnWork also depends on Coretex for its request, response, routing, environment, error handling, view, and templating infrastructure. The OwnWork repository explicitly installs dhruv125/coretex as its framework dependency.

The OwnWork helper layer therefore should not be documented as though approot(), view(), comp(), and getTempTranspiled() are the only available framework functions.

Quick Reference

Related Documentation

• Environment Configuration
• Request API
• Response API
• Views
• Components
• View Transpilation

next: README.md