magento2: XML syntax to change block's template

Summary

Documentation claims that it is possible to change a block’s template by the following layout update:

<referenceBlock name="navigation.sections">
  <arguments>
    <argument name="template" xsi:type="string">Magento_Theme::html/nav_sections.phtml</argument>
  </arguments>
</referenceBlock>

But It doesn’t work.

Using action node, instead of arguments node, works fine:

<referenceBlock name="navigation.sections">
  <action method="setTemplate">
    <argument name="template" xsi:type="string">Magento_Theme::html/nav_sections.phtml</argument>
  </action>
</referenceBlock>

Source: http://devdocs.magento.com/guides/v2.0/frontend-dev-guide/layouts/xml-manage.html#set_template

Preconditions (*)

Magento 2.3-develop
PHP 7.2

Steps to reproduce (*)

Try to change a block’s template by the following layout update e.g.: 3356

Expected result (*)

Block’s template is changed without any errors

Actual result (*)

Got exception 3356ex

About this issue

Original URL
State: closed
Created 8 years ago
Reactions: 18
Comments: 21 (9 by maintainers)

Commits related to this issue

magento/magento2#3356: XML syntax to change block's template — committed to nsergo/magento2 by nsergo 7 years ago
Merge pull request #3356 from magento-borg/BugFixPR [2.3.0-regression] Bug Fixes — committed to magento-research/magento2 by joanhe 6 years ago

Most upvoted comments

The reason why it doesn’t work is because the method \Magento\Framework\View\Layout\Generator\Block::generateBlock:

When we want to overwrite an existing block, this one was at first initialized via a layout XML with an attribute template.

Into the generateBlockmethod, arguments are passed to the block, then setTemplate is called and then in the calling method process the action is called.

So the priority is the following:

actions
setTemplate via attribute template
arguments

When a block was initialized with its attribute template, arguments will have no effect. That’s why you need to use actions

protected function generateBlock(
        Layout\ScheduledStructure $scheduledStructure,
        Layout\Data\Structure $structure,
        $elementName
    ) {
        list(, $data) = $scheduledStructure->getElement($elementName);
        $attributes = $data['attributes'];

        if (!empty($attributes['group'])) {
            $structure->addToParentGroup($elementName, $attributes['group']);
        }
        if (!empty($attributes['display'])) {
            $structure->setAttribute($elementName, 'display', $attributes['display']);
        }

        // create block
        $className = $attributes['class'];
        $block = $this->createBlock($className, $elementName, [
            'data' => $this->evaluateArguments($data['arguments'])
        ]);
        if (!empty($attributes['template'])) {
            $block->setTemplate($attributes['template']);
        }
        if (!empty($attributes['ttl'])) {
            $ttl = (int)$attributes['ttl'];
            $block->setTtl($ttl);
        }
        return $block;
    }

sylvainraye on Nov 2, 2016

@magento-engcom-team the PR you’ve referencing was also closed, as it required some changes in the pull request code. So now both this issue and PR are closed but the issue still exists and documentation is still wrong. In my opinion this issue should stay open until it’s fixed.

If you consider this a feature request, please at last fix the documentation.

tmotyl on Sep 20, 2017

This issue still exist.

<referenceBlock name="product.info.addtocart"> <arguments> <argument name="template" xsi:type="string">Yoma_Dipen::addtocart.phtml</argument> </arguments> </referenceBlock>

I tried this code in my customer module’s catalog_product_view.xml

it’s not working.

dvyaschts on Dec 14, 2019

Closing the issue as the feature request. Please, see more details here https://github.com/magento/magento2/pull/8913#discussion_r106549969

magento-engcom-team on Sep 20, 2017

This issue still exists. We should reopen it.

DanielRuf on May 8, 2018

Doesn’t work in 2.3.3-p1

adarshkhatri on May 22, 2020

FYI This issue was resolved by adjusting the docs and highlighting the applied priorities in https://github.com/magento/devdocs/pull/7977

ihor-sviziev on Oct 5, 2020

In 2.1.0 I still have to use ‘action’ and the online documentation is still wrong.

dnadle on Aug 23, 2016