Accessing the Layout Object

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On occasion, you may need direct access to the layout object. There are three ways you can do this:

Within view scripts: use the layout() view helper, which returns the Zend_Layout instance registered with the front controller plugin.

<?php $layout = $this->layout(); ?>

Since it returns the layout instance, you can also simply call methods on it, rather than assigning it to a variable.
Within action controllers: use the layout() action helper, which acts just like the view helper.
```
// Calling helper as a method of the helper broker:
$layout = $this->_helper->layout();

// Or, more verbosely:
$helper = $this->_helper->getHelper('Layout');
$layout = $helper->getLayoutInstance();
```
As with the view helper, since the action helper returns the layout instance, you can also simply call methods on it, rather than assigning it to a variable.
Elsewhere: use the static method getMvcInstance(). This will return the layout instance registered by the bootstrap resource.
```
$layout = Zend_Layout::getMvcInstance();
```
Via the bootstrap: retrieve the layout resource, which will be the Zend_Layout instance.
```
$layout = $bootstrap->getResource('Layout');
```
Anywhere you have access to the bootstrap object, this method is preferred over using the static getMvcInstance() method.