Loading a custom Yii Component - php

Question

I am trying to use a custom class I have created to send out mail so I can keep the controller files thin. I created my custom class and put it in the components folder. I then added:
'sendMail' => array(
'class'=>'application.components.SendMail.',
),
underneath main components in my main config file.
This should allow me to access the class directly correct? I try using:
Yii::app()->SendMail->MailerConfirmation();
and:
Yii:app()->MailerConfirmation();
and all I end up with is errors.
Can anyone tell me how I include a custom component? Maybe I am doing this all wrong?

Answer 1

First it should be:
'sendMail' => array(
'class'=>'application.components.SendMail',
),
Notice the absence of dot in the end "SendMail" instead of "SendMail.". Also, this configuration expects that you have php file SendMail.php, in protected/components directory that is a class with name "SendMail" and that this component extends CApplicationComponent. The component id will be with lower first letter, eg Yii::app()->sendMail and this will return instance of "SendMail" class. I do not know what MailerConfirmation is, but if this is a method of SendMail object, then you should access it like Yii::app()->sendMail->MailerConfirmation()
If this doesn't help, then please post some code and post the errors you are getting.

Answer 2

Note that if you are not going to set any component properties in the config file or use other CApplicationComponent features and your config file includes the default:
'import'=>array(
'application.models.*',
'application.components.*',
),
You can put your SendMail.php class in the components directory and it will autoload by calling it via:
$mailer = new SendMail();
then call your methods via:
$mailer->MailerConfirmation();
if you do want to use CApplicationComponent, you may want to look here or here for a couple examples, as well as the Yii tutorials.