Load NavHelper class in every controller for the View

Question

I'm loading my NavHelper class in every controller of my imcro MVC framework by injecting it into my abstract controller. But should I really inject it in there?

The NavHelper class is actually meant for the View. It's got a static function that returns a dynamically built array of navigation items based on the current request URI. But how would I use that directly in a View since Views aren't suppose to worry about object creation?

Otherwise I'd have to load it in the controller like I'm doing now, and just repeat the following in every controller, which isn't DRY and then send that to the View.

View::render('nav', $nav->get());

Controller.php

abstract class Controller
{
    protected $req;
    protected $nav;

    public function __construct(Req $req, NavHelper $nav)
    {
        $this->req = $req;
        $this->nav = $nav;
    }
}

Answer 1

It's model's job, so inject it there (or maybe include it's methods to some bigger class?). Also It depends on another model's object that has login information (usually User) so think about checking before building nav/pushing login data there/injecting User pointer (dpends on behaviour and amount of information needed). Example:

Model

//... has User and NavHelper injected
public function getNav() {
    return $this->navHelper->get($url_string, $this->user->loggedIn);
}

NavHelper

//...
public function get($url_string, $user_logged_in) {
    ...
    return $this->navArray;
}

View

//... has model pointer injected
private function renderNav() {
    foreach ($this->model->getNav() as $item => $url) { ... }
}

Ps. Try to avoid static methods - it has the same flaws as using globals (you cannot tell where it's used i.e. what depends on it and where it's state may change).