php function show result in html best practices - php

Question

I have two way for show result in/using html tags:
first way :(add html into function)
function _is_comments_($id,$type){
$db = mysqli_access::F("SELECT message,timestamp FROM " . COMMENTS . " WHERE pid = ? AND type = ? AND approved = 1 ", $id, $type);
foreach($db as $row){
$commentdata = '<p>'.$row['message'].'-'.$row['timestamp'].'</p>';
}
return $commentdata;
}
result:
echo _is_comments_('125','article');
second way:(separated html from function)
function _is_comments_($id,$type){
$db = mysqli_access::F("SELECT message,timestamp FROM " . COMMENTS . " WHERE pid = ? AND type = ? AND approved = 1 ", $id, $type);
foreach($db as $row){
$commentdata[] = $row;
}
return $commentdata;
}
in result(again foreach loop):
<?php
$comments_list = _is_comments_('125','article');
foreach($comments_list as $row){ ?>
<p><?php echo $row['message'].'-'.$row['timestamp'];?></p>
<?php
}
?>
which way is better and faster?

Answer 1

It is always a good design practice to keep concerns separated. So the second is the best option because it limits the the responsibility of the function to just accessing data.
With that in mind, you may consider passing a function as a third argument to the function that will carry the formatting. This is called the decorator pattern.
function _is_comments_($id,$type, $decorator){
$db = mysqli_access::F("SELECT message,timestamp FROM " . COMMENTS . " WHERE pid = ? AND type = ? AND approved = 1 ", $id, $type);
foreach($db as $row){
$commentdata[] = $decorator($row);
}
return $commentdata;
}
_is_comments_($id,$type, function($item){
return "<span>$item</span>";
});
You can create as many anonymous function decorator as you want and it makes the original function very powerful and extremely flexible.
Though both links above refer to objects, the same principles can, and are, applied to functions. I've used both patterns together in the past with great success.