CodeIgniter 4, helper function not working

Question

I've tried to autoload the helper function. I've added the helper file in autoload.php and called the function in the view file, but it's not working.

app/Config/autoload.php

$psr4 = ['Config'      => APPPATH . 'Config',
         APP_NAMESPACE => APPPATH, 
         'App'         => APPPATH,
         'Helpers'     => APPPATH . 'Helpers/MY_helper'];

app/Helpers/My_helper.php

<?php  if(!defined('BASEPATH')) exit('No direct script access allowed');

   function chicking_helper(){
       return 'welcome to helper function';
   }

app/Views/welcome_message.php

<h1>Welcome to CodeIgniter </h1>
<p class="version">version <?= CodeIgniter\CodeIgniter::CI_VERSION ?></p>

<?php
chicking_helper();
?>

app/Controllers/BaseController

class BaseController extends Controller
{

    /**
     * An array of helpers to be loaded automatically upon
     * class instantiation. These helpers will be available
     * to all other controllers that extend BaseController.
     *
     * @var array
     */
    protected $helpers = ['url', 'file'];

Answer 1

In your BaseController - $helpers array, add an element with your helper filename. Say you have it as app/Helpers/My_helper.php, then you edit your BaseController like this:

class BaseController extends Controller
{

    /**
     * An array of helpers to be loaded automatically upon
     * class instantiation. These helpers will be available
     * to all other controllers that extend BaseController.
     *
     * @var array
     */
    protected $helpers = ['url', 'file', 'my_helper'];

You do not need to touch the Autoload class in your scenario. It is used to map all the different namespaces in your project.

app/Helpers/My_helper.php

if(!function_exists('chicking_helper')) {
       function chicking_helper(){
           return 'welcome to helper function';
       }
}

Codeigniter 4 documentation helpers