How To Create A Magento Helper

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Due to some good reasons, it’s a bad programming habit, and it’s not recommended at all if you modify the core files of Magento. But sometimes, you may want to add new classes or override different functions in your Magento module. Therefore, Magento came up with the Helpers that are the right entity to fulfill your needs. A Helper in Magento is an object that contains practical methods. You can call it in template files, controllers, models or anywhere in Magento. All you need is to load your helper like this: Mage::helper(‘MODULE_NAME/HELPER_CLASS’)->HELPER_FUNCTION(); Creating a Magento Helper is quite easy. In this tutorial, you will learn how to create a helper in Magento. You will also find out how to use a helper! Assume that you have a simple Testmodule under MAGENTO_ROOT/app/code/local/Testextension/Testmodule. If you create a new module, do not forget to activate it by defining it in app/etc/modules directory. In your module’s ../etc/config.xml file, declare the new helper class under <global> as follows:

<config>
 ...
 <global>
  ...
  <helpers>
   <testhelper> <!-- helper name -->
    <class>Testmodule_Testhelper_Helper</class> <!-- declaration of helper class -->
   </testhelper>
  </helpers>
 </global>
</config>

Then create a new folder Helper in MAGENTO_ROOT/app/code/local/Testextension/Testmodule/ and a new helper class file Testhelper.php in newly created Helper folder. The class structure will be:

<?php
 class Testextension_Testmodule_Helper_Testhelper extends Mage_Core_Helper_Abstract
 {
  public function add($num1, $num2)
  {
   return $num1 + $num2;
  }
  public function subtract($num1, $num2)
  {
   return $num1 - $num2;
  }
  public function multiply($num1, $num2)
  {
   return $num1 * $num2;
  }
  public function divide($num1, $num2)
  {
   return $num1 / $num2;
  }
 }

Now we can use this helper function anywhere in Magento like this:

Mage::helper('testmodule/testhelper')->add(1,2);
Mage::helper('testmodule/testhelper')->subtract(5,3);
Mage::helper('testmodule/testhelper')->multiply(10,5);
Mage::helper('testmodule/testhelper')->divide(30,6);

We’re done! I hope you properly understood how to create a Magento Helper. I would suggest you to keep practicing; this is the only way to improve yourself. :-) Want to ask any questions? Feel free to leave a comment.