Pass data from block to view

Question

I found that you can set data to the view from block by setting it to your xml file. Is there's a way to set it without accessing your xml file? And another question, how can I pass data from controller to block?

Answer 1

For passing data from block to view

In block use

$this->setVariableName($value) or $this->assign(‘variableName’, $value)

In template use

$this->getVariableName() or $variableName respectively

For passing data from controller to block

It's not the responsibility of the controller to set variables for the view.

Controller set values from Models and block retrieves values from that model.

You can do this by:

• Creating a model class that inherits from Varien_object

• In the controller, instantiate that object using this code:

  $object = Mage::getSingleton('model')
  $object->setVar($value) or  $object->setData('var', $value)
  

• Later access the variable by

  $var = $object->getVar()
  

Hope you got what was needed :)