This document is for CakePHP's development version, which can be significantly different from previous releases.
You may want to read current stable release documentation instead.

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Registry Objects

The registry classes provide a simple way to create and retrieve loaded instances of a given object type. There are registry classes for Components, Helpers, Tasks, and Behaviors.

While the examples below will use Components, the same behavior can be expected for Helpers, Behaviors, and Tasks in addition to Components.

Loading Objects

Objects can be loaded on-the-fly using add<registry-object>() Example:

$this->loadComponent('Acl.Acl');
$this->addHelper('Flash')

This will result in the Acl property and Flash helper being loaded. Configuration can also be set on-the-fly. Example:

$this->loadComponent('Cookie', ['name' => 'sweet']);

Any keys and values provided will be passed to the Component’s constructor. The one exception to this rule is className. Classname is a special key that is used to alias objects in a registry. This allows you to have component names that do not reflect the classnames, which can be helpful when extending core components:

$this->Auth = $this->loadComponent('Auth', ['className' => 'MyCustomAuth']);
$this->Auth->user(); // Actually using MyCustomAuth::user();

Triggering Callbacks

Callbacks are not provided by registry objects. You should use the events system to dispatch any events/callbacks for your application.

Disabling Callbacks

In previous versions, collection objects provided a disable() method to disable objects from receiving callbacks. You should use the features in the events system to accomplish this now. For example, you could disable component callbacks in the following way:

// Remove Auth from callbacks.
$this->getEventManager()->off($this->Auth);

// Re-enable Auth for callbacks.
$this->getEventManager()->on($this->Auth);