cakephp2 override Form input action

Question

default cakephp echo $this->Form->input('name');

returns something like this

<div>
    <label for="mdl.name">name</label>
    <input type="text" id="mdl.name" name="mdl.name" />
</div>

but I want different let's say I want the the following

<div class="form-group more classes">
  <h3>name</h3>
  <div>
     <span class="extra span"></span>
     <input type="text" class="form-control" id="mdl.name">
     <span class="extra span"></span>
  </div>
  <label for="mdl.name">name</label>
  <span class="another span"></span>
</div>

I saw /lib/cake/view/Helper/FormHelper.php copied to app/view/Helper but have not seen any div, label or input tags

Answer 1

What you might be looking for is:

echo $this->Form->input('field', array(
'before' => '--before--',
'after' => '--after--',
'between' => '--between---'
));

Which will output:

<div class="input">
--before--
<label for="UserField">Field</label>
--between---
<input name="data[User][field]" type="text" value="" id="UserField" />
--after--
</div>

Reference: CakePHP 2.x FormHelper