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Version: main (5.3)

HTML Writer API

Moodle has a class called HTML writer which allows you to output basic HTML tags. This is typically used within renderer functions, for example question/type/*pluginname*/renderer.php.

tip

Please consider using templates as an alternative to the HTML writer.

note

There is no documentation for most of this class. Please read HTML Writer Class Reference for further information.

Methods​

div​

html_writer::div(content, class="", attributes="");

Example usage:

html_writer::div('anonymous');  // <div>anonymous</div>
html_writer::div('kermit', 'frog'); // <div class="frog">kermit</div>

Attributes can be set by an array with key-value pairs.

html_writer::div('Mr', 'toad', array('id' => 'tophat'));
// <div class="toad" id="tophat">Mr/div>

span​

html_writer::start_span('zombie') . 'BRAINS' . html_writer::end_span();
// <span class="zombie">BRAINS</span>

react_component​

html_writer::react_component(
    string $modulename,
    array|string|\stdClass|\JsonSerializable $props,
);

Render a placeholder <div> for a React component mount point.

The method writes:

  • data-react-component with the module name;
  • data-react-props containing JSON-encoded props.

Example usage:

html_writer::react_component(
    '@moodle/lms/core/example',
    (object) ['foo' => 'bar'],
);
// <div data-react-component="@moodle/lms/core/example" data-react-props="{\"foo\":\"bar\"}"></div>
note

If you are rendering a \core\output\react_component_renderable via renderer_base::render(), Moodle calls this method for you.

Generic tags​

html_writer::tag(tag_name, contents, attributes=null);
html_writer::start_tag(tag_name, attributes=null;);
html_writer::end_tag(tag_name);
html_writer::empty_tag(tag_name, attributes=null);
html_writer::nonempty_tag(tag_name, content, attributes=null);
html_writer::attribute(name, value);
html_writer::attributes(attributes_array);