CakePHP3 Render View to a Variable - cakephp

Question

I want to render the view to a variable without directly sending it to the browser. I used to do it with cakephp2.*. But, I cannot figure out how to do it in CakePHP3. Could you please tell me how to do it?

Answer 1

ViewBuilder was introduced in CakePHP 3.1 and handles the rendering of views. When ever I want to render to a variable I always go look at how send email works.
From a controller:
function index() {
// you can have view variables.
$data = 'A view variable';
// create a builder (hint: new ViewBuilder() constructor works too)
$builder = $this->viewBuilder();
// configure as needed
$builder->layout('default');
$builder->template('index');
$builder->helpers(['Html']);
// create a view instance
$view = $builder->build(compact('data'));
// render to a variable
$output = $view->render();
}

Answer 2

For Ajax request/response, I use this:
public function print(){
if ($this->request->is('ajax')) {
$data = $this->request->getData();
$builder = $this->viewBuilder()
->setTemplatePath('ControllerName')
->setTemplate('print');
->setLayout('ajax');
->enableAutoLayout(false);
$view = $builder->build(compact('data'));
$html = $view->render();
$res = ['html' => $html];
$this->set('response',$res);
$this->set("_serialize",'response');
}
}
And the print.ctp is under Template/ControllerName