---
title: "How to add a New Format to your Joomla 3 Component"
description: "This tutorial series, Joomla 3 component development, is currently in progress... In our last few tutorials about creating components within Joomla 3, we've been creating new views. The default..."
url: https://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/edu/joomla/joomla-3/formats/
date: 2014-05-15
modified: 2023-06-07
author: "Brad Markle"
categories: ["Joomla", "Joomla 3"]
tags: ["Joomla v3"]
type: post
lang: en
---

# How to add a New Format to your Joomla 3 Component

This tutorial series, [Joomla 3 component development](https://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/edu/joomla/joomla-3/helloworld/), is currently in progress…

In our last few tutorials about creating components within Joomla 3, we’ve been [creating new views](https://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/edu/joomla/joomla-3/add-new-view/). The default format for views is HTML format. However, you can setup your views to return data in other formats too, such as json or xml.

## Creating a new format

1. **Create your new “view format” file:** /components/com_helloworld/views/helloworld/view.**xml**.php ![file formats example](/support/images/stories/edu/joomla-3/create-component/different-formats.png) In our testing, we are creating an xml format, but you can create other formats too. For example, if you wanted to create a json format, you would create: /components/helloworld/views/helloworld/view.json.php
2. In the file you just created, write the php code that you would like to ultimately create your XML file. Here’s our example code: <?php // No direct access to this file defined('_JEXEC') or die('Restricted access'); // import Joomla view library [jimport](https://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/edu/joomla/joomla-3/jimport/)('joomla.application.component.view'); /** * XML View class for the HelloWorld Component */ class HelloWorldViewHelloWorld extends JViewLegacy { // Overwriting JView display method function display($tpl = null) { echo "<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?> <article> <title>How to create a Joomla Component</title> <alias>create-component</alias> </article>"; } }

## Testing our new format

To test our new format, call it via the URL as in this example:

https://example.com/index.php?option=com_helloworld&format=xml

If you followed along with this tutorial, your Joomla component should output the following:

![xml output](/support/images/stories/edu/joomla-3/create-component/xml-format.png)