Question

I want to test a Magento block function. I don’t know, how to call the function outside .phtml files. Does anybody know a function like getModel() for blocks?

I found

getBlockSingleton()

But, it is deprecated and I can’t get it to work.

Answer 1

Let’s say your Magento root is your web root. In your Magento root, create a test.php file. You’ll be able to access it at http://base_url/test.php.

ini_set('display_errors',true); //PHP has such friendly errors, show them!

include 'app/Mage.php';         //include the helper class/bootstrap file
Mage::setIsDeveloperMode(true); //flag to render Magento's traces

Mage::app();
/**
   Instantiate the app. Note that this is different from Mage::run()! This can
   be skipped given the Mage::app() call below.
*/

//block "type"
$class = 'core/bar';

//block instance
$block = Mage::app()->getLayout()->createBlock($class);

if (is_object($block)) die("Okay! ".get_class($block));

/**
 * If script execution reaches this point, there is one of
 * two problems:
 *
 * 1) bad/missing config
 * 2) bad path based on filename
 */

//the xpath which is used
$xpath = 'global/blocks/'.strstr($class,'/',true).'/class';

//a node from config XML (we hope)
$node = Mage::getConfig()->getNode($xpath);

//error condition 1:
if (!$node) die("Bad xpath, check configuration: ".$xpath);

//error condition 2:
$name = uc_words((string) $node . '_' . substr(strrchr($class, '/'), 1));
$file = str_replace('_', DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR, $name.'.php');
$issue = '<br /><br />';

if (!is_readable($file)) {
    //no file matching classname
    $issue .= "No file found for $file, tried:<pre> - ";
    $issue .= str_replace(PATH_SEPARATOR,'/'.$file.'<br /> - ',get_include_path()).$xpath.'</pre>';
} else {
    $issue .= "Wrong class name in $file";
}

echo sprintf('Xpath ok, looking for class <span style="font-family: Courier New">%s</span>%s',$name,$issue);