Symfony2/Twig - how to set template file contents as variable?

Question

In Symfony 2.8 I've got SharedBundle , where I keep views and other things I share between other bundles, including the whole layout that should be extended by other bundles' views.
That shared layout has some typical blocks, from which sidebar block should be different for different bundles.

Currently I did an ugly workaround:

In SharedBundle sidebar container:

{% if sidebarcontent is defined %}
    {{ sidebarcontent|raw }}
{% else %}
    SIDEBAR NOT FOUND
{% endif %}

And in other bundles (here: BundleA ) in every view that extends the shared main view:

{% extends 'SharedBundle:layout.html.twig' %}
{% block sidebar %}
    {% include 'BundleA:_partials:sidebar.html.twig' %}
{% endblock %}
{% set sidebarcontent =  block('sidebar') %}

But that doesn't look good, I think. Is there a better way?

Answer 1

I think this is a valid approach. The only simplification I can think of is not using the variable sidebarcontent .

You can use block('sidebar') inside the if statement:

{% if block('sidebar')|length > 0 %}
    {{ sidebarcontent|raw }}
{% else %}
    SIDEBAR NOT FOUND
{% endif %}

Make sure the block exists before checking it's content, so initialise it with an empty string:

{% block sidebar %}{% endblock %}