How to use renderSection in Codeigniter 4? - php

Question

From the official documentation of Codeigniter 4 for view layouts there is a function renderSection that you can use at your templates.
The main problem though is that I couldn't figure out how this works. Please have in mind that I don't want a work-around for this, I really need to know how the renderSection works and what I am missing.
To be more precise:
At my Controller I have this code:
// TestController.php
...
// My method
...
$view = \Config\Services::renderer();
$view->setVar('output', $output);
return $view->render('my-main-view');
...
and my view looks something like this:
// my-main-view.php
...
<div class="main-container">
<main>
<?php echo $output; ?>
</main>
<?php echo $this->renderSection('sidebar'); ?>
</div>
...
So my question is:
Can I somehow add the data that I would like to have for the 'sidebar' from my controller? I would like to use the renderSection specifically to understand how it works.
Please do not add a work-around for this. I know that I could just have the:
$view->setVar('sidebar', view('my-view'));
and then at my template:
echo $sidebar;
The main reason that I am asking this is that we usually find work-arounds and we are missing the point of how to actually use the renderSection
Is there any kind of:
$view->setRenderSection('sidebar', 'my-view', ['data' => $data]);
that I can use? Am I missing something here?

Answer 1

After spending some time to understand how the section is working, I could finally find a solution to the render section.
The solution is not quite obvious thought. It seems that there isn't any setRenderSection so I did create my own to my controller. More specifically to the previous example we had:
$view = \Config\Services::renderer();
$view->setVar('output', $output);
return $view->render('my-main-view');
So I've added a function at my Controller with name _setRenderSection :
private function _setRenderSection($viewRenderer, $sectionName , $viewName, $data = []) {
$viewRenderer->section($sectionName);
echo view($viewName, $data);
$viewRenderer->endSection($sectionName);
}
So my final method will look like this:
$view = \Config\Services::renderer();
$view->setVar('output', $output);
$this->_setRenderSection($view, 'sidebar' ,'my-view', ['data' => '123']);
return $view->render('my-main-view');
I am also copying the full Controller just in case you would like to copy-paste it:
<?php namespace App\Controllers;
class Webpages extends BaseController
{
private function _setRenderSection($viewRenderer, $sectionName , $viewName, $data = []) {
$viewRenderer->section($sectionName);
echo view($viewName, $data);
$viewRenderer->endSection($sectionName);
}
public function about()
{
$view = \Config\Services::renderer();
$view->setVar('output', 'Hello World!');
$this->_setRenderSection($view, 'sidebar' ,'my-view', ['data' => '123']);
return $view->render('my-main-view');
}
}