Question

Isn’t it much slower concerning development time ?

What are the advantages of of HTML->link ?

Thanks !

Answer 1

It’s just a question of whether you want to generate your own URLs and hard-code them, or if you want Cake to do the work for you. For simple urls leading to the homepage of your site using cake may seem slower, but it’s actually useful for dynamic urls, for example:

Say you’re printing a table of items and you have a link for each item that deletes that item. You can easily create this using:

    <?php
    echo $this->Html->link(
    'Delete',
    array('controller' => 'recipes', 'action' => 'delete', $id),
    array(),
    "Are you sure you wish to delete this recipe?"
);

Notice how using an array specifying the controller and action as a URL allows you to be agnostic of any custom routes. This can have its advantages.

The corresponding way to do it without the HTML helper would be:

<a href="/recipes/delete/<?php echo $id; ?>" onclick="return confirm('Are you sure you wish to delete this recipe?');">Delete</a>

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It can also be really useful for constructing URL query strings automatically. For example, you can do this in array format:

<?php
echo $this->Html->link('View image', array(
    'controller' => 'images',
    'action' => 'view',
    1,
    '?' => array('height' => 400, 'width' => 500))
);

That then outputs this line of HTML:

<a href="/images/view/1?height=400&width=500">View image</a>

It could be a pain to generate that URL manually.

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In summary, while it may seem awkward for simple links, the HTML helper definitely has its uses. For further uses, consult the cakePHP book on the HTML helper’s link function.