How to access logged in user data, in a layout. (CakePHP 3) - authentication

Question

I have a web app programmed in cakephp 3.
I want to have a layout that shows logged in user first & last name. like something in facebook main page. that you can click and go to your page.
I want to have this feature in every page, so I decided to use layouts.
my Users table is like:
| id | username | password | email | first_name | last_name | created | modified |
I use Authentication Component like this:
$this->loadComponent('Auth', [
'loginRedirect' => [
'controller' => 'Pages',
'action' => 'display'
],
'logoutRedirect' => [
'controller' => 'Users',
'action' => 'login'
],
'authError' => 'Authentication Error'
]);
How can I load user first name and last name in a layout?

Answer 1

you can do it by using Session. like:
$user = "";
$loguser = $this->Session->read('Auth.User');
if(!empty($loguser)){
$user = $loguser['first_name']." ".$loguser['last_name'];
}
UPDATE (8/23/2015) :
as recently cakephp says that SessionHelper is deprecated, you should use request->session() instead.
$loguser = $this->request->session()->read('Auth.User');
if(!$loguser) {
$user = $loguser['first_name'].' '.$loguser['last_name'];
}

Answer 2

You can pass your variables through controller to views by:
$this->set('user','users_data');
and then pass this to the layout:
$this->assign('user',$user);
and show it in the layout by:
$this->fetch('user');

Answer 3

You need to pass the data from the controller to the view environment.
I've found the best way to do this globally is to put the set() statement in AppController::beforeRender-
// make logged in user's first name available to the view (mainly for menu)
$name="(none)";
if($this->Auth->user()) {
$name = $this->Auth->user("first_name");
}
$this->set("user_first_name", $name);
Just please make sure not to put any sensitive data there, eg password, as a bug at the template level could potentially expose it.