pass data from module controller to layout

Question

i make a simple module and i want to get all products of category and pass these products to my layout file. as well as i want to get products of a specific category and display these to my layout or view. for this i have to make seperate model or i can use build in functionality. here is some code it write i my controller.

  class Saqi_Builder_IndexController extends Mage_Core_Controller_Front_Action
{
    public function indexAction(){
     $this->loadLayout(array('default'));
     $this->renderLayout();
    }
} 

Answer 1

Try this:

class Saqi_Builder_IndexController extends Mage_Core_Controller_Front_Action
{
    public function indexAction(){
     $productCollection = Mage::getResourceModel('catalog/product_collection')->addCategoryFilter($category);

     $this->loadLayout(array('default'),'');

     $this->getLayout()->getBlock('your_main_block_name_here')->setData('products', $productCollection);

     $this->renderLayout();
    }
} 

Then you will be able to access the product collection in your block or template like this:

$this->getData('products');

Answer 2

If you are using blocks that inherit Mage_Core_Block_Template (i.e. that use a template to display) you can assign data using the assign() method, once the blocks have been instanciated by loadLayout()

$this->loadLayout(array('default', 'myModule_default'));

$this->getLayout()->getBlock('your.block.name.in.the.layout')->assign('data', $data);

Then, in the .phtml template, you can simply use

<?php echo $data ?>

This is not used very often in magento, but since it's implemented as public methods and thus declared stable, I believe it's fine do so. Thats also the reason for the convention to start variables declared in a template with an underscore (e.g. $_product = $this->getProduct()), so they can be distinguished from assigned variables.

Answer 3

And for Magento2 :

inside controller's execute method:

$layout = $this->_view->loadLayout();
$layout->getlayout()->getBlock('your_block_name_here')->setData('order', $order);
$this->_view->renderLayout();