Dynamic linking in PHP - php

Question

I am creating a custom CMS for learning. I have the plan to have the following pages,
Login page
All Posts page
Edit Post page
index page
header.php (the website's header)
footer.php (the website's footer)
sidebar.php (the website's sidebar)
I am confused how would the index page link header, footer and sidebar. Please guide me how can I link these php files in index.php.

Answer 1

You can simply add an Array of files you want to include:
$array = ('header.php', 'footer.php', 'sidebar.php');
Then add some HTML Code structure...
and then you can access the Array and load files.
include_once($array[0]);
.. to include the header.php
include_once($array[1]);
.. to include the footer.php
....
you can use the require_once function to make your site not loading other content if the file does not exists.
if you want to add these files automaticly just add a loop.
foreach($array as $file){
if(file_exists($file)){
require_once($file);
}
else{
die($file.' does not exist!');
}
}

Answer 2

You can use either require_once or include.
I personally use require once option cause it only needs to be include once and not again on later stage.
Inside your body tags:
require_once('/path/to/header.php');
require_once('/path/to/breadcrumb.php');
require_once('/path/to/content.php');
require_once('/path/to/footer.php');
require_once('/path/to/copyright.php');