how-to-helpers.md

How to import functions (helpers) into templates

Some projects may have a set of functions they would like to share across all templates. Those functions could be easily imported into any template by means of the import directive:

<% import MyHelpers %>

However, including the same module in every template may be a bit cumbersome. For this reason, Elixir allows you define a set of modules to be added as prelude for each template. Open up lib/PROJECT/dynamo.ex and you can see the following chunk of code:

templates do
  use Dynamo.Helpers
end

The code above is adding by default all of Dynamo.Helpers. You can import your own modules inside the same chunk of code:

templates do
  use Dynamo.Helpers
  import MyHelpers
end

Restart the Dynamo and now all functions from MyHelpers will also be available in your templates.

Dynamo.Helpers

Sometimes, it may be the case Both content_for and render macros used in this guide are part of Dynamo helpers. Dynamo ships with a couple helpers that make programming templates a bit easier:

• Dynamo.Helpers.ContentFor - helpers for passing data in between templates
• Dynamo.Helpers.Escaping - helpers for escaping html inside templates
• Dynamo.Helpers.Rendering - helpers for rendering templates inside templates