How do I programmatically load a custom block?

Question

I created a new custom block type in /admin/structure/block/block-content/types to which I added two fields. Then, I created a block with that block type.

How can I programmatically load this block via code?

How do I get the values of its fields (x, an image field, and y, a text field)?

I tried this code, but it didn't work.

$block = \Drupal\block_content\Entity\BlockContent::load($bid);
$render = \Drupal::entityManager()->getViewBuilder('block_content')->view($block);

Answer 1

Place the block in the disabled section at admin/structure/block, this creates a block instance with your block_content type, give it a nice easy machine name to remember.

By placing it in the disabled section, it won't show up, until you load it programatically.

Then using your machine name:

$machine_name = 'myblock';

$block = \Drupal::entityTypeManager()
  ->getStorage('block')
  ->load($machine_name);
if (!empty($block)) {
  $block_content = \Drupal::entityTypeManager()
    ->getViewBuilder('block')
    ->view($block);

  $pre_render = $block_content;
}

If you really want to get the rendered fields, you can do:

$render = \Drupal::entityTypeManager()
  ->getViewBuilder('block')
  ->build($pre_render);

But it is more standard practice to use Drupal's formatters and such and perhaps a custom template, rather than building the block and extracting elements from the rendered render array.

Answer 2

There are two questions. How to load and render a configured block is answered perfectly by @oknate.

For the second question, How do I get the values of its fields (x, an image field, and y, a text field)? That's easy, because you've already loaded the block content entity, where the fields are stored in the database.

$block = \Drupal\block_content\Entity\BlockContent::load($bid);

You can access the value from the text field

$text = $block->field_y->value;

and get the url from the image field.

$image_url = file_create_url($block->field_x->entity->uri->value);

Answer 3

Try this code by including EntityInterface:

// Block 
use Drupal\Core\Entity\EntityInterface;
// the last part of the parameter is the block id
$block = \Drupal\block\Entity\Block::load('yourblockid');
$block_content = \Drupal::entityManager()
  ->getViewBuilder('block')
  ->view($block);
\Drupal::service('renderer')->renderRoot($block_content);

Answer 4

$block = \Drupal::service('entity.repository')->loadEntityByUuid('block_content', $uuid);
      if (!empty($block)) {
        $recArticleAdView = \Drupal::entityTypeManager()
          ->getViewBuilder('block_content')
          ->view($block);
        $rendered = \Drupal::service('renderer')->render($recArticleAdView);
        $response = new CacheableResponse($rendered);
        $response->addCacheableDependency(CacheableMetadata::createFromRenderArray($recArticleAdView));
        $variables['content']['sponsored_content'] = Markup::create(trim(strip_tags($response->getContent(), '<div>')));
      }