Best way to implement a global utility function?

[jordanlev]

Some other frameworks and CMS's I've used have a handy function called "h", which is a shortcut to htmlspecialchars($string, ENT_QUOTES, 'utf-8'). This makes it super-easy to escape output in your templates. I don't see anything like this in ProcessWire, so I'm wondering what is the best way to define a utility function like this that is available to the entire codebase (I intentionally want it to be in the global namespace)? Ideally this would be in my /site/ directory (not /wire/), but it could also be in an installable module I suppose.

Thanks.

[horst]

I use my own utility function files in my site-profiles in a subfolder called for example: 'mylibs'

I include them once in the site/config.php file:  include_once(dirname(__FILE__) . "/mylibs/myfunctions.php");

This way I can use all what is in my utility files every where, regardless if I run PW in the webserver or if I bootstrap it for CLI operations.

[Pete]

Yup - horst's solution or an autoload module would work, but I think his would be easier, quicker and upgrade-proof since config.php doesn't get altered during upgrades and has to be included whatever you're doing in ProcessWire.

[MuchDev]

As a noob I put includes in my header that is included on every page. Hadn't thought about including in the config.

[horst]

when it is in the site/config.php it is available everywhere, also in modules, regardless at which time a module is loaded. (I'm speaking of custom modules, especially created just for one site) 

I can use all my personal utilities in those modules, in templates, in hanna-codes, just every where at every time, - thanks to Ryan who made $config populated first in PW. (so easy and with less writing) 

[SiNNuT]

For this specific case you could also add hooks to $sanitizer from an autoload module. So that you could call $sanitizer->specialchars(). See wire/core/sanitizer.php for details.

Horst's solution is probably easiest.


On a side note:
There is already $sanitizer->entities() so maybe it would make sense to add specialchars to Sanitizer core class?

[horst]

On a side note:

There is already $sanitizer->entities() so maybe it would make sense to add specialchars to Sanitizer core class?

+1