# Twig for Developers

This chapter describes the API to Twig and not the template language. It will be most useful as reference to those implementing the template interface to the application and not those who are creating Twig templates.

## Basics

Twig uses a central object called the environment (of class `\Twig\Environment`). Instances of this class are used to store the configuration and extensions, and are used to load templates.

Most applications create one `\Twig\Environment` object on application initialization and use that to load templates. In some cases, it might be useful to have multiple environments side by side, with different configurations.

The typical way to configure Twig to load templates for an application looks roughly like this:

    require_once '/path/to/vendor/autoload.php';

    $loader = new \Twig\Loader\FilesystemLoader('/path/to/templates');
    $twig = new \Twig\Environment($loader, [
        'cache' => '/path/to/compilation_cache',
    ]);

This creates a template environment with a default configuration and a loader that looks up templates in the `/path/to/templates/` directory. Different loaders are available and you can also write your own if you want to load templates from a database or other resources.

Note

Notice that the second argument of the environment is an array of options. The `cache` option is a compilation cache directory, where Twig caches the compiled templates to avoid the parsing phase for sub-sequent requests. It is very different from the cache you might want to add for the evaluated templates. For such a need, you can use any available PHP cache library.

## Loading Templates

To load a template, call the `load()` method on a Twig environment which returns a `\Twig\TemplateWrapper` instance:

    $template = $twig->load('index.html.twig');

## Rendering Templates

To render a template with some variables, call the `render()` method:

    echo $template->render(['the' => 'variables', 'go' => 'here']);

Note

The `display()` method is a shortcut to output the rendered template.

You can also load and render the template directly via the Environment:

    echo $twig->render('index.html.twig', ['the' => 'variables', 'go' => 'here']);

If a template defines blocks, they can be rendered individually via the `renderBlock()` call:

    echo $template->renderBlock('block_name', ['the' => 'variables', 'go' => 'here']);

## Streaming Templates

Added in version 3.18.

To stream a template, call the `stream()` method:

    $template->stream(['the' => 'variables', 'go' => 'here']);

To stream a specific template block, call the `streamBlock()` method:

    $template->streamBlock('block_name', ['the' => 'variables', 'go' => 'here']);

Note

The `stream()` and `streamBlock()` methods return an iterable.

## Environment Options

When creating a new `\Twig\Environment` instance, you can pass an array of options as the constructor second argument:

    $twig = new \Twig\Environment($loader, ['debug' => true]);

The following options are available:

- `debug` boolean

  When set to `true`, the generated templates have a `__toString()` method that you can use to display the generated nodes (default to `false`).

- `charset` string (defaults to `utf-8`)

  The charset used by the templates.

- `cache` string or `false`

  An absolute path where to store the compiled templates, or `false` to disable caching (which is the default).

- `auto_reload` boolean

  When developing with Twig, it’s useful to recompile the template whenever the source code changes. If you don’t provide a value for the `auto_reload` option, it will be determined automatically based on the `debug` value.

- `strict_variables` boolean

  If set to `false`, Twig will silently ignore invalid variables (variables and or attributes/methods that do not exist) and replace them with a `null` value. When set to `true`, Twig throws an exception instead (default to `false`).

- `autoescape` string

  Sets the default auto-escaping strategy (`name`, `html`, `js`, `css`, `url`, `html_attr`, or a PHP callback that takes the template “filename” and returns the escaping strategy to use – the callback cannot be a function name to avoid collision with built-in escaping strategies); set it to `false` to disable auto-escaping. The `name` escaping strategy determines the escaping strategy to use for a template based on the template filename extension (this strategy does not incur any overhead at runtime as auto-escaping is done at compilation time.)

- `optimizations` integer

  A flag that indicates which optimizations to apply (default to `-1` – all optimizations are enabled; set it to `0` to disable).

## Loaders

Loaders are responsible for loading templates from a resource such as the file system.

### Compilation Cache

All template loaders can cache the compiled templates on the filesystem for future reuse. It speeds up Twig a lot as templates are only compiled once.

### Built-in Loaders

Here is a list of the built-in loaders:

#### `\Twig\Loader\FilesystemLoader`

`\Twig\Loader\FilesystemLoader` loads templates from the file system. This loader can find templates in folders on the file system and is the preferred way to load them:

    $loader = new \Twig\Loader\FilesystemLoader($templateDir);

It can also look for templates in an array of directories:

    $loader = new \Twig\Loader\FilesystemLoader([$templateDir1, $templateDir2]);

With such a configuration, Twig will first look for templates in `$templateDir1` and if they do not exist, it will fallback to look for them in the `$templateDir2`.

You can add or prepend paths via the `addPath()` and `prependPath()` methods:

    $loader->addPath($templateDir3);
    $loader->prependPath($templateDir4);

The filesystem loader also supports namespaced templates. This allows to group your templates under different namespaces which have their own template paths.

When using the `setPaths()`, `addPath()`, and `prependPath()` methods, specify the namespace as the second argument (when not specified, these methods act on the “main” namespace):

    $loader->addPath($templateDir, 'admin');

Namespaced templates can be accessed via the special `@namespace_name/template_path` notation:

    $twig->render('@admin/index.html.twig', []);

`\Twig\Loader\FilesystemLoader` supports absolute and relative paths. Using relative paths is preferred as it makes the cache keys independent of the project root directory (for instance, it allows warming the cache from a build server where the directory might be different from the one used on production servers):

    $loader = new \Twig\Loader\FilesystemLoader('templates', getcwd().'/..');

Note

When not passing the root path as a second argument, Twig uses `getcwd()` for relative paths.

#### `\Twig\Loader\ArrayLoader`

`\Twig\Loader\ArrayLoader` loads a template from a PHP array. It is passed an array of strings bound to template names:

    $loader = new \Twig\Loader\ArrayLoader([
        'index.html.twig' => 'Hello {{ name }}!',
    ]);
    $twig = new \Twig\Environment($loader);

    echo $twig->render('index.html.twig', ['name' => 'Fabien']);

This loader is very useful for unit testing. It can also be used for small projects where storing all templates in a single PHP file might make sense.

Tip

When using the `Array` loader with a cache mechanism, you should know that a new cache key is generated each time a template content “changes” (the cache key being the source code of the template). If you don’t want to see your cache grows out of control, you need to take care of clearing the old cache file by yourself.

#### `\Twig\Loader\ChainLoader`

`\Twig\Loader\ChainLoader` delegates the loading of templates to other loaders:

    $loader1 = new \Twig\Loader\ArrayLoader([
        'base.html.twig' => '{% block content %}{% endblock %}',
    ]);
    $loader2 = new \Twig\Loader\ArrayLoader([
        'index.html.twig' => '{% extends "base.html.twig" %}{% block content %}Hello {{ name }}{% endblock %}',
        'base.html.twig'  => 'Will never be loaded',
    ]);

    $loader = new \Twig\Loader\ChainLoader([$loader1, $loader2]);

    $twig = new \Twig\Environment($loader);

When looking for a template, Twig tries each loader in turn and returns as soon as the template is found. When rendering the `index.html.twig` template from the above example, Twig will load it with `$loader2` but the `base.html.twig` template will be loaded from `$loader1`.

Note

You can also add loaders via the `addLoader()` method.

### Create your own Loader

All loaders implement the `\Twig\Loader\LoaderInterface`:

    interface \Twig\Loader\LoaderInterface
    {
        /**
         * Returns the source context for a given template logical name.
         *
         * @param string $name The template logical name
         *
         * @return \Twig\Source
         *
         * @throws \Twig\Error\LoaderError When $name is not found
         */
        public function getSourceContext($name);

        /**
         * Gets the cache key to use for the cache for a given template name.
         *
         * @param string $name The name of the template to load
         *
         * @return string The cache key
         *
         * @throws \Twig\Error\LoaderError When $name is not found
         */
        public function getCacheKey($name);

        /**
         * Returns true if the template is still fresh.
         *
         * @param string    $name The template name
         * @param timestamp $time The last modification time of the cached template
         *
         * @return bool    true if the template is fresh, false otherwise
         *
         * @throws \Twig\Error\LoaderError When $name is not found
         */
        public function isFresh($name, $time);

        /**
         * Check if we have the source code of a template, given its name.
         *
         * @param string $name The name of the template to check if we can load
         *
         * @return bool    If the template source code is handled by this loader or not
         */
        public function exists($name);
    }

The `isFresh()` method must return `true` if the current cached template is still fresh, given the last modification time, or `false` otherwise.

The `getSourceContext()` method must return an instance of `\Twig\Source`.

## Using Extensions

Twig extensions are packages that add new features to Twig. Register an extension via the `addExtension()` method:

    $twig->addExtension(new \Twig\Extension\SandboxExtension());

Twig comes bundled with the following extensions:

- TwigExtensionCoreExtension: Defines all the core features of Twig.

- TwigExtensionDebugExtension: Defines the `dump` function to help debug template variables.

- TwigExtensionEscaperExtension: Adds automatic output-escaping and the possibility to escape/unescape blocks of code.

- TwigExtensionSandboxExtension: Adds a sandbox mode to the default Twig environment, making it safe to evaluate untrusted code.

- TwigExtensionProfilerExtension: Enables the built-in Twig profiler.

- TwigExtensionOptimizerExtension: Optimizes the node tree before compilation.

- TwigExtensionStringLoaderExtension: Defines the `template_from_string`

    function to allow loading templates from string in a template.

The Core, Escaper, and Optimizer extensions are registered by default.

## Built-in Extensions

This section describes the features added by the built-in extensions.

Tip

Read the chapter about extending Twig to learn how to create your own extensions.

### Core Extension

The `core` extension defines all the core features of Twig:

- Tags;

- Filters;

- Functions;

- Tests.

### Escaper Extension

The `escaper` extension adds automatic output escaping to Twig. It defines a tag, `autoescape`, and a filter, `raw`.

When creating the escaper extension, you can switch on or off the global output escaping strategy:

    $escaper = new \Twig\Extension\EscaperExtension('html');
    $twig->addExtension($escaper);

If set to `html`, all variables in templates are escaped (using the `html` escaping strategy), except those using the `raw` filter:

    {{ article.to_html|raw }}

You can also change the escaping mode locally by using the `autoescape` tag:

    {% autoescape 'html' %}
        {{ var }}
        {{ var|raw }}      {# var won't be escaped #}
        {{ var|escape }}   {# var won't be double-escaped #}
    {% endautoescape %}

Warning

The `autoescape` tag has no effect on included files.

The escaping rules are implemented as follows:

- Literals (integers, booleans, arrays, …) used in the template directly as variables or filter arguments are never automatically escaped:

      {{ "Twig<br/>" }} {# won't be escaped #}

      {% set text = "Twig<br/>" %}
      {{ text }} {# will be escaped #}

- Expressions which the result is a literal or a variable marked safe are never automatically escaped:

      {{ any_value ? "Twig<br/>" : "<br/>Twig" }} {# won't be escaped #}

      {% set text = "Twig<br/>" %}
      {{ true ? text : "<br/>Twig" }} {# will be escaped #}
      {{ false ? text : "<br/>Twig" }} {# won't be escaped #}

      {% set text = "Twig<br/>" %}
      {{ any_value ? text|raw : "<br/>Twig" }} {# won't be escaped #}

- Objects with a `__toString` method are converted to strings and escaped. You can mark some classes and/or interfaces as being safe for some strategies via `EscaperExtension::addSafeClass()`:

      // mark objects of class "HtmlGenerator" as safe for the HTML strategy
      $escaper->addSafeClass('HtmlGenerator', ['html']);

      // mark objects of interface "HtmlGeneratorInterface" as safe for the HTML strategy
      $escaper->addSafeClass('HtmlGeneratorInterface', ['html']);

      // mark objects of class "HtmlGenerator" as safe for the HTML and JS strategies
      $escaper->addSafeClass('HtmlGenerator', ['html', 'js']);

      // mark objects of class "HtmlGenerator" as safe for all strategies
      $escaper->addSafeClass('HtmlGenerator', ['all']);

- Escaping is applied before printing, after any other filter is applied:

      {{ var|upper }} {# is equivalent to {{ var|upper|escape }} #}

- The `raw` filter should only be used at the end of the filter chain:

      {{ var|raw|upper }} {# will be escaped #}

      {{ var|upper|raw }} {# won't be escaped #}

- Automatic escaping is not applied if the last filter in the chain is marked safe for the current context (e.g. `html` or `js`). `escape` and `escape('html')` are marked safe for HTML, `escape('js')` is marked safe for JavaScript, `raw` is marked safe for everything.

      {% autoescape 'js' %}
          {{ var|escape('html') }} {# will be escaped for HTML and JavaScript #}
          {{ var }} {# will be escaped for JavaScript #}
          {{ var|escape('js') }} {# won't be double-escaped #}
      {% endautoescape %}

Note

Note that autoescaping has some limitations as escaping is applied on expressions after evaluation. For instance, when working with concatenation, `{{ value|raw ~ other }}` won’t give the expected result as escaping is applied on the result of the concatenation, not on the individual variables (so, the `raw` filter won’t have any effect here).

### Sandbox Extension

The `sandbox` extension can be used to evaluate untrusted code. Read more about it in the Twig Sandbox chapter.

### Profiler Extension

The `profiler` extension enables a profiler for Twig templates; it should only be used on your development machines as it adds some overhead:

    $profile = new \Twig\Profiler\Profile();
    $twig->addExtension(new \Twig\Extension\ProfilerExtension($profile));

    $dumper = new \Twig\Profiler\Dumper\TextDumper();
    echo $dumper->dump($profile);

A profile contains information about time and memory consumption for template, block, and macro executions.

You can also dump the data in a Blackfire.io compatible format:

    $dumper = new \Twig\Profiler\Dumper\BlackfireDumper();
    file_put_contents('/path/to/profile.prof', $dumper->dump($profile));

Upload the profile to visualize it (create a free account first):

    blackfire --slot=7 upload /path/to/profile.prof

### Optimizer Extension

The `optimizer` extension optimizes the node tree before compilation:

    $twig->addExtension(new \Twig\Extension\OptimizerExtension());

By default, all optimizations are turned on. You can select the ones you want to enable by passing them to the constructor:

    $optimizer = new \Twig\Extension\OptimizerExtension(\Twig\NodeVisitor\OptimizerNodeVisitor::OPTIMIZE_FOR);

    $twig->addExtension($optimizer);

Twig supports the following optimizations:

- `\Twig\NodeVisitor\OptimizerNodeVisitor::OPTIMIZE_ALL`, enables all optimizations (this is the default value).

- `\Twig\NodeVisitor\OptimizerNodeVisitor::OPTIMIZE_NONE`, disables all optimizations. This reduces the compilation time, but it can increase the execution time and the consumed memory.

- `\Twig\NodeVisitor\OptimizerNodeVisitor::OPTIMIZE_FOR`, optimizes the `for` tag by removing the `loop` variable creation whenever possible.

## Exceptions

Twig can throw exceptions:

- `\Twig\Error\Error`: The base exception for all errors.

- `\Twig\Error\SyntaxError`: Thrown to tell the user that there is a problem with the template syntax.

- `\Twig\Error\RuntimeError`: Thrown when an error occurs at runtime (when a filter does not exist for instance).

- `\Twig\Error\LoaderError`: Thrown when an error occurs during template loading.

- `\Twig\Sandbox\SecurityError`: Thrown when an unallowed tag, filter, or method is called in a sandboxed template.