The View Facade and Helper

The View Facade & Helper

Two entry points sit in front of the active adapter: the static View facade and the global view() helper. The helper is a thin wrapper over the facade, so they share one behaviour.

The View facade

InitPHP\Views\Facade\View is a static entry point to a single registered adapter. It is intentionally static-only and cannot be instantiated.

Registering the adapter

public static function via(string|ViewAdapterInterface $adapter): void

via() accepts either:

• a ready-to-use adapter instance (the usual choice — the built-in adapters take constructor arguments), or
• the class name of an adapter that can be constructed with no arguments.

use InitPHP\Views\Facade\View;
use InitPHP\Views\Adapters\PurePHPAdapter;

// Instance — required for the bundled adapters
View::via(new PurePHPAdapter(__DIR__ . '/views'));

// Class name — only for adapters with a no-argument constructor
View::via(MyZeroArgAdapter::class);

Calling via() again replaces the active adapter. It throws a ViewAdapterException when the argument is a class name that:

• does not exist,
• does not implement ViewAdapterInterface, or
• requires constructor arguments that a bare new $class() cannot supply (pass a configured instance instead).

View::via(PurePHPAdapter::class);
// ViewAdapterException: PurePHPAdapter needs a $viewDir argument — pass an instance.

Forwarded calls

Once an adapter is registered, every static call is forwarded to it:

View::setView('header', 'footer');     // queue views, in order
View::setData(['title' => 'Home']);    // merge data
$all = View::getData();                // read all data
$one = View::getData('title', '—');    // read one value, with a default
echo View::render();                   // render the queue and reset

setView() and setData() return the adapter, so they chain:

echo View::setView('dashboard')->setData(['user' => 'admin'])->render();

Calling any of these before via() throws a ViewException.

For the Blade adapter, View also forwards engine-specific methods such as directive() and any other Blade factory method.

The view() helper

The view() function is registered through Composer autoloading and is always available:

function view(string|array $views, array|object $data = []): string

It wraps the facade:

echo view('dashboard', ['username' => 'admin']);

// is exactly:

echo View::setView('dashboard')->setData(['username' => 'admin'])->render();

A string renders one view; an array of strings renders several, in order:

echo view(['header', 'content', 'footer'], ['title' => 'Home']);

The helper is defined behind a function_exists('view') guard, so it will not collide with a view() function your framework may already provide. If another view() is loaded first, the helper simply isn't defined — use the facade directly in that case.

State and reuse

render() clears the queued views and merged data once it finishes — even if a view throws — so the same adapter instance can be reused for independent renders without state leaking between them:

echo view('a', ['x' => 1]);   // renders 'a' with x = 1
echo view('b', ['x' => 2]);   // renders 'b' with x = 2 only — nothing from the first call

setData() merges: repeated keys overwrite earlier values within a single render.

View::setData(['a' => 1, 'b' => 2]);
View::setData(['b' => 3]);     // 'b' is now 3
View::getData();               // ['a' => 1, 'b' => 3]

Reading data — getData()

public function getData(?string $key = null, mixed $default = null): mixed

• getData() or getData(null) returns the whole data array.
• getData('key') returns the stored value, or null if the key is absent.
• getData('key', $default) returns $default when the key is absent.

A stored null is distinct from a missing key — getData('present', 'x') returns null if present was set to null, but 'x' if it was never set.

See also

• API Reference — exact signatures.
• Custom Adapters — what via() expects of an adapter.
• Exceptions — every error the facade can raise.