Plugins can be either loaded by Smarty automatically from the filesystem or they can be registered at runtime via one of the register_* API functions. They can also be unregistered by using unregister_* API functions.

For the plugins that are registered at runtime, the name of the plugin function(s) does not have to follow the naming convention.

If a plugin depends on some functionality provided by another plugin (as is the case with some plugins bundled with Smarty), then the proper way to load the needed plugin is this:

<?php
function smarty_function_yourPlugin(array $params, Smarty_Internal_Template $template)
{
  // load plugin depended upon
  $template->smarty->loadPlugin('smarty_shared_make_timestamp');
  // plugin code
}
?>

    

As a general rule, the currently evaluated template's Smarty_Internal_Template object is always passed to the plugins as the last parameter with two exceptions: