Extending Twig

Craft provides two ways for plugins to extend its Twig templating environment.

• Extend the Global craft Variable
• Register a Twig Extension

Extend the Global craft Variable #

The global craft template variable is an instance of craft\web\twig\variables\CraftVariable. When a template references craft.entries or craft.entries(), it’s calling CraftVariable::entries() behind the scenes, for example.

The CraftVariable instance can be extended by plugins with behaviors and services. Choosing the right approach depends on what you’re trying to add to it.

• Use a behavior to add custom properties or methods directly onto the craft variable (e.g. craft.foo()).
• Use a service to add a sub-object to the craft variable, which can be accessed with a custom property name, called the service’s “ID”. (e.g. craft.foo.*).

You can attach your behavior or service to the CraftVariable instance by registering an EVENT_INIT event handler from your plugin’s init() method:

use craft\web\twig\variables\CraftVariable;
use yii\base\Event;

public function init()
{
    parent::init();

    Event::on(CraftVariable::class, CraftVariable::EVENT_INIT, function(Event $e) {
        /** @var CraftVariable $variable */
        $variable = $e->sender;

        // Attach a behavior:
        $variable->attachBehaviors([
            MyBehavior::class,
        ]);

        // Attach a service:
        $variable->set('serviceId', MyService::class);
    });
}

Register a Twig Extension #

If you want to add new global variables, functions, filters, tags, operators, or tests to Twig, you can do that by creating a custom Twig extension.

Twig extensions can be registered for Craft’s Twig environment by calling craft\web\View::registerTwigExtension() from your plugin’s init() method:

public function init()
{
    parent::init();

    if (Craft::$app->request->getIsSiteRequest()) {
        // Add in our Twig extension
        $extension = new MyTwigExtension();
        Craft::$app->view->registerTwigExtension($extension);
    }
}