laravel autoloading a Helper with composer

Question

Laravel 4.x Hi I'm learning about Helpers. i have a Helper (helpers.php) that I want to load so my function in the View will be able to process the data.

My composer.json

...
},
    "autoload": {
        "classmap": [
            "app/commands",
            "app/controllers",
            "app/models",
            "app/database/migrations",
            "app/database/seeds",
            "app/tests/TestCase.php"
        ],
        "files" : [
            "app/helpers.php"
        ]
    },
...

but by running : composer dump-autoload --optimize I have no error but my view doesn't process the data

View

 <img src="foo($photo->user->name) }}.jpg" alt="" > 

My helpers.php

function foo($email)
{
    //process some data here that will return the name
    return "john";

}

Answer 1

If you don't get any errors about a non-existant function, I think your might be just wrong.

You have this:

<img src="foo($photo->user->name) }}.jpg" alt="" > 

But should have this:

<img src="{{ foo($photo->user->name) }}.jpg" alt="" > 

Answer 2

Create a classes directory in your app/

Modify app/start/global.php as

ClassLoader::addDirectories(array(
  app_path().'/commands',
  app_path().'/controllers',
  app_path().'/models',
  app_path().'/database/seeds',
  app_path().'/classes', //add this
));

Create your Helpers.php file in new created classes directory.

<?php
class Helpers {
    public static function myCoolFunction() {
        return "so cool";
    }
}

Sometimes you may need to run composer dump-autoload .

Here you go: Helpers::myCoolFunction();

Addition

Also another quick way (there several ways actually), but not recommend, put your function to boostrap/start.php . You can call wherever you want.