When to use $wire, or wire(), or $this??

[Vigilante]

In general, is there an easy way to know which method should be used to access the API?

For example, when _ini.php is used in the theme, it would seem you have to use wire()->addHookBefore(...). But on other sites where they used ready.php, I've seen it go straight to just doing $this->addHookAfter() even though there is no class or namespace set up in the ready.php file.

So how do I know when I can do $this, or $wire, or wire() to access things? And any other variables I'm not aware of.

Thanks!

[MoritzLost]

It mostly doesn't matter, you get the same API variables independent of the method. That said, I would suggest the following for readability:

• $this: Use only inside of classes extending \ProcessWire\Wire. It appears that $this is also available in template files as a reference to the current wire instance, but as you said, this is a somewhat confusing and unconventional usage given that you're not actually inside a class.
• $wire: Use inside regular PHP template files (or if you want to use a different API variable like $page, $pages, $input, et c. use that one directly).
• wire(): Use inside functions (not class methods) so you don't have to pass $wire or $this to the closure.

[3fingers]

More information here:

https://processwire.com/docs/start/api-access/