Twig View Template

Bhitti supports Twig as an optional template engine.

Twig is not required by the framework. Applications that want to use it install it separately:

composer require twig/twig

Native response()->view() rendering remains available whether Twig is installed or not.

Render a Twig template

return response()->twig('welcome', [
    'title' => 'Bhitti',
]);

When the view name does not end in .twig, Bhitti treats it as dot notation and uses .html.twig by default.

response()->twig('welcome');

loads:

resources/views/welcome.html.twig

A nested view:

response()->twig('admin.users.index');

loads:

resources/views/admin/users/index.html.twig

Explicit Twig filenames

If the view name already ends in .twig, it is passed to Twig as the template filename.

return response()->twig('reports/users.csv.twig', [
    'users' => $users,
]);

Other examples:

response()->twig('feeds/rss.xml.twig', $data);
response()->twig('emails/welcome.txt.twig', $data);
response()->twig('pages/home.html.twig', $data);

This allows Twig to be used for HTML as well as other text-based formats without forcing .html.twig on every template.

Response status

response()->twig() defaults to HTTP status 200.

Pass a non-200 status directly:

return response()->twig(
    'errors.404',
    [],
    404
);

Or call status() after the renderer:

return response()
    ->twig('errors.404')
    ->status(404);

Call status() after twig(). Renderer methods default to 200 and will overwrite a status set before them.

Basic Twig syntax

Escaped output:

<h1></h1>

Conditionals:

Loops:

<ul>
    
</ul>

Twig handles its own template syntax and escaping behavior.

CSRF token

Bhitti exposes the current CSRF token to Twig:

<input type="hidden" name="_csrf" value="">

You may also use the provided CSRF field function:

<form method="post" action="/profile">
    

    <button type="submit">Save</button>
</form>

csrf_field() returns the complete hidden input and is registered as safe HTML so Twig does not escape the generated tag.

Compiled template cache

Twig compiles templates and stores the compiled result under:

storage/cache/twig

The Twig environment is created lazily when twig() is first used.

Native view() rendering does not initialize Twig.

The Twig debug option follows:

config('app.debug', false)

In production, keep application debug mode disabled so normal cached-template behavior is used.

Native and Twig templates can coexist

Bhitti does not require a global template-engine switch.

Use the renderer explicitly:

return response()->view('dashboard.index', $data);

for:

resources/views/dashboard/index.view.php

and:

return response()->twig('dashboard.index', $data);

for:

resources/views/dashboard/index.html.twig

A project may therefore use native PHP templates for most pages and Twig only where desired.

Output formats and responses

twig() always returns the rendered template as a string.

The template filename does not automatically change the HTTP response type.

For HTML:

return response()->twig('pages.home', $data);

For CSV:

return response()
    ->twig('exports/users.csv.twig', $data)
    ->header('Content-Type', 'text/csv; charset=utf-8');

For XML:

return response()
    ->twig('feeds/rss.xml.twig', $data)
    ->header('Content-Type', 'application/xml; charset=utf-8');

The application is responsible for choosing the appropriate response headers for non-HTML formats.

When to use Twig

Twig is useful when a project prefers:

• a dedicated template syntax;
• automatic template escaping;
• Twig filters, functions and control structures;
• a familiar external PHP template ecosystem.

Twig remains opt-in. Applications that use only native Bhitti views do not need to install it.

Twig Official Documentation