1. Foil
2. Getting Started

Alias

Inside templates, all the Foil features are accessed via the $this variable, e.g. template variables are accessed like $this->varName and template function like $this->functionName().

Even if the word "this" is made by just 4 letters, being typed more and more times in a template requires a lot of typing.

For example, accessing a variable like $variable is pretty shorter than $this->variable.

I am strongly convinced that benefits coming from Foil approach completely worth the additional 6 letters needed to access a variable.

However, starting from version 0.6, Foil provides a way to shorten its syntax.

Introducing Alias Variable

Alias variable is a global variable available in templates that aliases $this.

E.g. using the variable $T as alias, a template variable can be accessed using $T->variable as well as a template function using $T->functionName().

The alias must be set, using the 'alias' option, when Foil Engine is instantiated:

$engine = Foil\engine([
  'folders' => ['path/to/templates'],
  'alias'   => 'T',
]);

the only constraint is that the alias must be a valid variable name. E.g. something like:

$engine = Foil\engine([
  'folders' => ['path/to/templates'],
  'alias'   => 'Foil',
]);

is totally fine, and allows to access Foil features in templates using $Foil-> syntax.