Templates and blocks
Before we dive into the template files, it’s crucial to understand the relationship between blocks and these files. This is primarily because most blocks utilize template files. Recalling our previous discussion on the importance of practice and familiarity, let’s first tackle the blocks that are linked with templates. Afterward, I’ll shed light on those blocks that do not use templates at the close of this section.
In all the Layout XML files you’ve seen and browsed so far in your local environment, you can see that almost all <block> nodes (layout instructions) have an additional attribute class defined next to them.
This class attribute specifies the PHP class that the block node is associated with. This class typically contains the methods (functions) that the block uses to fetch, manipulate, and render data.
Let’s take a look at how the customer login form template is defined in the XML files:
<block...