How to create custom helper functions in Laravel
Stefan Izdrail
Founder & Senior Architect · 2026-06-29
Title: Efficiently Create Custom Helper Functions for Laravel Views
Introduction: In web development, code reusability is important to ensure efficiency and consistency across projects. Laravel makes it easy to create custom helper functions that allow you to reuse your code snippets as needed within views. This blog post aims to provide a comprehensive guide on how to define globally available helper functions like fooFormatText() in Laravel.
1. Understanding Helper Functions:
Helper functions are small, reusable chunks of code that can be called from anywhere within your application. These functions perform specific tasks and make working with complex data easier. They can include logic, formatting, or any other operations needed to achieve a particular result. You can define your custom helper functions globally to make them available across all your Laravel views and controllers.
2. Defining Helper Functions in Laravel:
To create custom helper functions in Laravel, you need to add the function definition into a specific file, which is referred to as 'Helper' class. You have two options for where to place this helper class: the Application class or a dedicated Helpers folder within your project directory.
Option 1: Using the Application Class:
- Create and open an empty file named "Helpers" in your Laravel project root directory, typically located at app/Http/Helpers.php.
- Import the Illuminate\Support\Facades\Helper class from the Illuminate namespace.
- Define your helper function with the appropriate logic in the Helpers file. Here's an example using the fooFormatText() function:
namespace App\Http\Helpers;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Helper;
class Helpers extends Helper {
public static function fooFormatText($text) {
return 'Foo Formatted text: ' . $this->format($text);
}
}
- In your blade template (view.blade.php), you can now call the helper function as follows:
<p>Foo Formated text: {{ fooFormatText($text) }}</p>
namespace App\Helpers;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Helper;
class Helpers {
public static function fooFormatText($text) {
return 'Foo Formatted text: ' . $this->format($text);
}
}
- In your blade template (view.blade.php), you can call the helper function as shown earlier, but with a different namespace:
<p>Foo Formated text: {{ Helpers\fooFormatText($text) }}</p>