In a MVC scenario, is it OK to pass arguments to functions from the View to satisfy different formatting needs?
For example: let's say that the model has a DateTime object and the view must show this date in various format (sometimes as "01-Jan-2020", sometimes as "Monday, 01-Jan-2020 08:00" sometimes in some other way, possibly on the same screen).
Scenario 1:
The view receives different variable for each format:
DateShort: "01-Jan-2020"
DateLong: "Monday, 01-Jan-2020 08:00"
...
echo {{ DateShort }}
echo {{ DateLong }}
Pros: the View is super-simple: no function call, just print variables (yay!). The available formats are centralized and consistent across the whole project (no hotshot printing the date based on their cultural preference)
Cons: slippery separation of concerns: displaying+formatting content should be the View responsibility. This makes the model exposing the DateTime object bloated with extra, unrelated code. Strong coupling: to display the DateTime in another, new format, we need to change the model (!!)
Scenario 2:
The view receives the object directly, then it formats it as-needed:
Date: (object)DateTime
...
echo {{ Date.format('%D %M %Y') }}
//variant: format is actually exposed as a constant
echo {{ Date.format(Formats::DATETIME_FORMAT_DATELONG) }}
Pros: better separation of concerns, better decoupling.
Cons: calling functions from the View feels awful. What if, somewhere, the {{ Date }} variable doesn't have a format() method because it's of another type?
My feeling: the benefit of the Scenario 2 vastly outweighs the cons. Still, it feels bad and can get very ugly, very fast: {{ Price.format_currency('EUR', {fraction_digit: 2}) }} become acceptable, which "feels" terrible.
Is there a best practice or SOLID rule I can apply to choose one way over the other with confidence?
