Use view helpers in controllers in Zend Framework

Question

Hi all,

I have a controller that is called with AJAX (sends JSON data), so I don't use a view.

I need to use a personnal view helper to format my data, but in my controller.

Is that possible ?

Or maybe I am doing it wrong (maybe I should have a view, but how with JSON) ?

Answer 1

You can access any ViewHelper from the Controller by

$this->view->helpername(/*params*/);
// or
$helper = $this->view->getHelper('helpername');
// or
$broker = Zend_Controller_Action_HelperBroker::getStaticHelper('ViewRenderer');
$broker->getView()->helpername(/*params*/);

See http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2353034

However, you might be right that you are doing it wrong (funny pic btw), but I cannot really tell from your question. Please refine it as to why you need to call the view helper and what it is supposed to format.

Answer 2

Just use action helpers, many of view helpers are available as action helpers too.

Or directly by using Zend_Date or sprintf.