I know exactly what I want to realize, but I dont really know how to go about it with PHP.
I have made up some code that should serve as the concept of how it should actually be.
I want to indent every new line with X amount of spaces for the code that's out of the brackets.
Is there a way to accomplish what I want?
I am not trying to do anything visual on the design, but rather have my code properly indented.
<?php
// Other PHP Code
foreach(explode("\n", $content) as $line) {
?>
This code outside the php block should be in the $content variable above to alter it.
<div class="content">
<!-- Content -->
</div>
<?php
echo str_repeat(" ", 4), $line;
}
// Other PHP Code
?>
What about using css margin? You can give the line a class like this:
html:
<div class="myClass">here is my special text</div>
css:
.myClass{
margin-left: 10px;
}
Replace echo str_repeat(" ", 4), $line;
by echo str_repeat(" ", 4), $line;
Indenting the source code itself works fine. No need for any fancy PHP code.
<?php
// Other PHP Code
foreach(explode("\n", $content) as $line) {
?>
<!--Indent here!-->
<div class="content">
<!-- Content -->
<?php echo $line; //assuming this is what you wanted to print ?>
</div>
<?php
}
// Other PHP Code
?>
Notice how the HTML part (div) is indented. PHP will keep this indentation when generating the resulting HTML code.
Related
I want to conditionally output HTML to generate a page, so what's the easiest way to echo multiline snippets of HTML in PHP 4+? Would I need to use a template framework like Smarty?
echo '<html>', "\n"; // I'm sure there's a better way!
echo '<head>', "\n";
echo '</head>', "\n";
echo '<body>', "\n";
echo '</body>', "\n";
echo '</html>', "\n";
There are a few ways to echo HTML in PHP.
1. In between PHP tags
<?php if(condition){ ?>
<!-- HTML here -->
<?php } ?>
2. In an echo
if(condition){
echo "HTML here";
}
With echos, if you wish to use double quotes in your HTML you must use single quote echos like so:
echo '<input type="text">';
Or you can escape them like so:
echo "<input type=\"text\">";
3. Heredocs
4. Nowdocs (as of PHP 5.3.0)
Template engines are used for using PHP in documents that contain mostly HTML. In fact, PHP's original purpose was to be a templating language. That's why with PHP you can use things like short tags to echo variables (e.g. <?=$someVariable?>).
There are other template engines (such as Smarty, Twig, etc.) that make the syntax even more concise (e.g. {{someVariable}}).
The primary benefit of using a template engine is keeping the design (presentation logic) separate from the coding (business logic). It also makes the code cleaner and easier to maintain in the long run.
If you have any more questions feel free to leave a comment.
Further reading is available on these things in the PHP documentation.
NOTE: PHP short tags <? and ?> are discouraged because they are only available if enabled with short_open_tag php.ini configuration file directive, or if PHP was configured with the --enable-short-tags option. They are available, regardless of settings from 5.4 onwards.
Try it like this (heredoc syntax):
$variable = <<<XYZ
<html>
<body>
</body>
</html>
XYZ;
echo $variable;
You could use the alternative syntax alternative syntax for control structures and break out of PHP:
<?php if ($something): ?>
<some /> <tags /> <etc />
<?=$shortButControversialWayOfPrintingAVariable ?>
<?php /* A comment not visible in the HTML, but it is a bit of a pain to write */ ?>
<?php else: ?>
<!-- else -->
<?php endif; ?>
Basically you can put HTML anywhere outside of PHP tags. It's also very beneficial to do all your necessary data processing before displaying any data, in order to separate logic and presentation.
The data display itself could be at the bottom of the same PHP file or you could include a separate PHP file consisting of mostly HTML.
I prefer this compact style:
<?php
/* do your processing here */
?>
<html>
<head>
<title><?=$title?></title>
</head>
<body>
<?php foreach ( $something as $item ) : ?>
<p><?=$item?></p>
<?php endforeach; ?>
</body>
</html>
Note: you may need to use <?php echo $var; ?> instead of <?=$var?> depending on your PHP setup.
I am partial to this style:
<html>
<head>
<% if (X)
{
%> <title>Definitely X</title>
<% }
else
{
%> <title>Totally not X</title>
<% }
%> </head>
</html>
I do use ASP-style tags, yes. The blending of PHP and HTML looks super-readable to my eyes. The trick is in getting the <% and %> markers just right.
Another approach is put the HTML in a separate file and mark the area to change with a placeholder [[content]] in this case. (You can also use sprintf instead of the str_replace.)
$page = 'Hello, World!';
$content = file_get_contents('html/welcome.html');
$pagecontent = str_replace('[[content]]', $content, $page);
echo($pagecontent);
Alternatively, you can just output all the PHP stuff to the screen captured in a buffer, write the HTML, and put the PHP output back into the page.
It might seem strange to write the PHP out, catch it, and then write it again, but it does mean that you can do all kinds of formatting stuff (heredoc, etc.), and test it outputs correctly without the hassle of the page template getting in the way. (The Joomla CMS does it this way, BTW.)
I.e.:
<?php
ob_start();
echo('Hello, World!');
$php_output = ob_get_contents();
ob_end_clean();
?>
<h1>My Template page says</h1>
<?php
echo($php_output);
?>
<hr>
Template footer
$enter_string = '<textarea style="color:#FF0000;" name="message">EXAMPLE</textarea>';
echo('Echo as HTML' . htmlspecialchars((string)$enter_string));
Simply use the print function to echo text in the PHP file as follows:
<?php
print('
<div class="wrap">
<span class="textClass">TESTING</span>
</div>
')
?>
In addition to Chris B's answer, if you need to use echo anyway, still want to keep it simple and structured and don't want to spam the code with <?php stuff; ?>'s, you can use the syntax below.
For example you want to display the images of a gallery:
foreach($images as $image)
{
echo
'<li>',
'<a href="', site_url(), 'images/', $image['name'], '">',
'<img ',
'class="image" ',
'title="', $image['title'], '" ',
'src="', site_url(), 'images/thumbs/', $image['filename'], '" ',
'alt="', $image['description'], '"',
'>',
'</a>',
'</li>';
}
Echo takes multiple parameters so with good indenting it looks pretty good. Also using echo with parameters is more effective than concatenating.
echo '
<html>
<body>
</body>
</html>
';
or
echo "<html>\n<body>\n</body>\n</html>\n";
Try this:
<?php
echo <<<HTML
Your HTML tags here
HTML;
?>
This is how I do it:
<?php if($contition == true){ ?>
<input type="text" value="<?php echo $value_stored_in_php_variable; ?>" />
<?php }else{ ?>
<p>No input here </p>
<?php } ?>
Don't echo out HTML.
If you want to use
<?php echo "<h1> $title; </h1>"; ?>
you should be doing this:
<h1><?= $title;?></h1>
I have a complex HTML tag, with many attributes and it appears in very different parts of the code.
Example:
<div class="blabla" data-test="blablabla" ... data-another-attribute="blabla" >
<some complex html code ... >
</div>
And I do not want to repeat this <div></div> with all its attributes in different parts of the code as it changes quite often during development.
If I create a function like this (example in PHP):
function myDivStart() { ?>
<div class="blabla" data-attribute="blablabla" data-another-attribute="blabla">
<?php }
then my resulting code would look like
<?php myDivStart(); ?>
<some html code ... >
</div>
and the finishing </div> would look kind of out-of-place, since there is no visual starting <div>. My text editor would also not parse this correctly and syntax highlighting is messed up.
Then, if I create another function for the closing </div>, it would be a very silly function indeed:
function myDivEnd() { ?>
</div>
<?php }
and turn the original code into
<?php myDivStart(); ?>
<some html code ... >
<?php myDivEnd(); ?>
This would solve the syntax highlighting problem, but it still feels very unclean to have such a silly function to close.
UPDATE: Storing the HTML code in a variable and passing that to a function would not really solve the problem neither, as the HTML inside a variable would not be parsed correctly with syntax highlighting.
$myHTML = 'A very long and complex piece of html';
<?php myDiv($myHTML); ?>
My text editor would not have syntax highlighting there.
And doing the following would also make the code disorderly, as the $myHTML code comes before the <div> and actually, logically belongs after it.
$myHTML = ?>
A very long and complex piece of html
<?php ;
myDiv($myHTML);
Is there any pattern that would solve for this?
If it's always the same tag you can use a variable or a constant instead of a function.
E.g.
$openTag = "<div class=\"blabla\" data-test=\"blablabla\" ... data-another-attribute=\"blabla\" >";
$closeTag = "</div>";
If you have varying parts of that tag then you can instead indeed make a function, e.g.:
function openingDiv($class) {
return "<div class=\"$class\" data-test=\"blablabla\" ... data-another-attribute=\"blabla\" >"
}
function closingDiv() {
return "</div>";
}
You can also make it a bit more sophisticated:
function wrapContentInDiv($content) {
return "<div class=\"$class\" data-test=\"blablabla\" ... data-another-attribute=\"blabla\" >$content</div>";
}
Example uses:
<?php
$openTag = "<div class=\"blabla\" data-test=\"blablabla\" ... data-another-attribute=\"blabla\" >";
$closeTag = "</div>";
?>
<leading html>
....
<?php echo $openTag ?>
<some html here>
<?php echo $closeTag ?>
...
<?php echo $openTag ?>
<some other html here>
<?php echo $closeTag ?>
<trailing html>
You can take this one step further and define your code in a separate php file:
e.g. config.php
Then you can:
<?php
require_once("config.php")
?>
...
Update:
You could also use a template e.g. file complexDiv.php
<div class="blabla" data-test="blablabla" ... data-another-attribute="blabla" >
Use this as below:
<leading html>
....
<?php //Set any parameters that complexDiv.php needs here
include 'complexDiv.php'
?>
<some html here>
</div>
...
<?php include 'complexDiv.php' ?>
<some other html here>
</div>
<trailing html>
I suspect that before long you'll realise that its worth switching to a template engine like smarty of blade.
It depends on what the some HTML code is but you could do something like this pseudocode
$some_html=''; //your html code goes here as a string
myDiv($some_html);
function myDiv( $arg ){
echo <div class="blabla" data-attribute="blablabla" data-another-attribute="blabla">
echo $arg;
echo </div>
}
You can first prepare the HTML on a different file and include that file on the function where the div tags are waiting for them to wrap that content of yours. Hope it helps.
function wrapperDiv() {
$html = '';
$html .= '<div class="blabla" data-test="blablabla" ... data-another-attribute="blabla" >';
$html .= include_once 'body.php';
$html .= '</div>';
return $html;
}
wrapperDiv();
I'd like to keep my HTML source code pretty and indented (or tabbed). For instance:
$someHTML.='<div class="NOINDENT">';
$someHTML.=' <div class="INDENT1">';
$someHTML.=' <div class="INDENT2"><div>';
$someHTML.=' </div>';
$someHTML.='</div>';
echo $someHTML;
This PHP looks pretty and readable enough to me, but when the HTML is output it will be one long line of code (with no line breaks)! I'd like to have PHP print a line break, but still have the code "readable" while working on it in PHP.
For the above example, is using \n at the end of each line my only option?
Heredoc syntax to the rescue
$someHTML = <<<HTML
<div>
<div>
...
</div>
</div>
HTML;
you can use the constant PHP_EOL to end your lines
$someHTML.='<div class="NOINDENT">'.PHP_EOL;
The HEREDOC syntax is better, but when you are inside functions / loop / etc. which requires tabs, it make the php code looks weird sometimes
I try and avoid echoing html if its more than a single line.
Instead you can use output buffering if you need the html in a string, eg if you need to return a string from a function:
function getHtmlString(){
ob_start(); ?>
<div class="NOINDENT">
<div class="INDENT1">
<div class="INDENT2"><div>
</div>
</div>
<?php
$html = ob_get_clean();
return $html;
}
?>
<html>
<head>...</head>
<body>
<div id="someid">
<?php echo getHtmlString(); ?>
...
Yes, you must add '\n' at the end.
And if you want tabs, add '\t' at the beggining of each line.
In order to use line breaks, you need to use the double-quoted string form and place a newline (\n) character at the end of every line. Note that the double quotes within the string now need to be escaped with a backslash. For example:
$someHTML.="<div class=\"NOINDENT\">\n";
$someHTML.=" <div class=\"INDENT1\">\n";
$someHTML.=" <div class=\"INDENT2\"><div>\n";
$someHTML.=" </div>\n";
$someHTML.="</div>\n";
echo $someHTML;
Another option would be to use the HEREDOC string format, which will maintain whitespace and also has the advantage of not requiring you to escape double quotes:
$someHTML = <<<HERE
<div class="NOINDENT">
<div class="INDENT1">
<div class="INDENT2"><div>
</div>
</div>
HERE;
I wanted to show that this solution is close to what I want , and works great, but the staring and ending ' and '; aren't that pretty. heredoc seems like the best and cleanest answer so far.
function html(){
$someHTML=
'<div class="NOINDENT">a
<div class="INDENT1">b
<div class="INDENT2">c<div>
</div>
</div>';
return $someHTML;
}
echo(html());
I want to conditionally output HTML to generate a page, so what's the easiest way to echo multiline snippets of HTML in PHP 4+? Would I need to use a template framework like Smarty?
echo '<html>', "\n"; // I'm sure there's a better way!
echo '<head>', "\n";
echo '</head>', "\n";
echo '<body>', "\n";
echo '</body>', "\n";
echo '</html>', "\n";
There are a few ways to echo HTML in PHP.
1. In between PHP tags
<?php if(condition){ ?>
<!-- HTML here -->
<?php } ?>
2. In an echo
if(condition){
echo "HTML here";
}
With echos, if you wish to use double quotes in your HTML you must use single quote echos like so:
echo '<input type="text">';
Or you can escape them like so:
echo "<input type=\"text\">";
3. Heredocs
4. Nowdocs (as of PHP 5.3.0)
Template engines are used for using PHP in documents that contain mostly HTML. In fact, PHP's original purpose was to be a templating language. That's why with PHP you can use things like short tags to echo variables (e.g. <?=$someVariable?>).
There are other template engines (such as Smarty, Twig, etc.) that make the syntax even more concise (e.g. {{someVariable}}).
The primary benefit of using a template engine is keeping the design (presentation logic) separate from the coding (business logic). It also makes the code cleaner and easier to maintain in the long run.
If you have any more questions feel free to leave a comment.
Further reading is available on these things in the PHP documentation.
NOTE: PHP short tags <? and ?> are discouraged because they are only available if enabled with short_open_tag php.ini configuration file directive, or if PHP was configured with the --enable-short-tags option. They are available, regardless of settings from 5.4 onwards.
Try it like this (heredoc syntax):
$variable = <<<XYZ
<html>
<body>
</body>
</html>
XYZ;
echo $variable;
You could use the alternative syntax alternative syntax for control structures and break out of PHP:
<?php if ($something): ?>
<some /> <tags /> <etc />
<?=$shortButControversialWayOfPrintingAVariable ?>
<?php /* A comment not visible in the HTML, but it is a bit of a pain to write */ ?>
<?php else: ?>
<!-- else -->
<?php endif; ?>
Basically you can put HTML anywhere outside of PHP tags. It's also very beneficial to do all your necessary data processing before displaying any data, in order to separate logic and presentation.
The data display itself could be at the bottom of the same PHP file or you could include a separate PHP file consisting of mostly HTML.
I prefer this compact style:
<?php
/* do your processing here */
?>
<html>
<head>
<title><?=$title?></title>
</head>
<body>
<?php foreach ( $something as $item ) : ?>
<p><?=$item?></p>
<?php endforeach; ?>
</body>
</html>
Note: you may need to use <?php echo $var; ?> instead of <?=$var?> depending on your PHP setup.
I am partial to this style:
<html>
<head>
<% if (X)
{
%> <title>Definitely X</title>
<% }
else
{
%> <title>Totally not X</title>
<% }
%> </head>
</html>
I do use ASP-style tags, yes. The blending of PHP and HTML looks super-readable to my eyes. The trick is in getting the <% and %> markers just right.
Another approach is put the HTML in a separate file and mark the area to change with a placeholder [[content]] in this case. (You can also use sprintf instead of the str_replace.)
$page = 'Hello, World!';
$content = file_get_contents('html/welcome.html');
$pagecontent = str_replace('[[content]]', $content, $page);
echo($pagecontent);
Alternatively, you can just output all the PHP stuff to the screen captured in a buffer, write the HTML, and put the PHP output back into the page.
It might seem strange to write the PHP out, catch it, and then write it again, but it does mean that you can do all kinds of formatting stuff (heredoc, etc.), and test it outputs correctly without the hassle of the page template getting in the way. (The Joomla CMS does it this way, BTW.)
I.e.:
<?php
ob_start();
echo('Hello, World!');
$php_output = ob_get_contents();
ob_end_clean();
?>
<h1>My Template page says</h1>
<?php
echo($php_output);
?>
<hr>
Template footer
$enter_string = '<textarea style="color:#FF0000;" name="message">EXAMPLE</textarea>';
echo('Echo as HTML' . htmlspecialchars((string)$enter_string));
Simply use the print function to echo text in the PHP file as follows:
<?php
print('
<div class="wrap">
<span class="textClass">TESTING</span>
</div>
')
?>
In addition to Chris B's answer, if you need to use echo anyway, still want to keep it simple and structured and don't want to spam the code with <?php stuff; ?>'s, you can use the syntax below.
For example you want to display the images of a gallery:
foreach($images as $image)
{
echo
'<li>',
'<a href="', site_url(), 'images/', $image['name'], '">',
'<img ',
'class="image" ',
'title="', $image['title'], '" ',
'src="', site_url(), 'images/thumbs/', $image['filename'], '" ',
'alt="', $image['description'], '"',
'>',
'</a>',
'</li>';
}
Echo takes multiple parameters so with good indenting it looks pretty good. Also using echo with parameters is more effective than concatenating.
echo '
<html>
<body>
</body>
</html>
';
or
echo "<html>\n<body>\n</body>\n</html>\n";
Try this:
<?php
echo <<<HTML
Your HTML tags here
HTML;
?>
This is how I do it:
<?php if($contition == true){ ?>
<input type="text" value="<?php echo $value_stored_in_php_variable; ?>" />
<?php }else{ ?>
<p>No input here </p>
<?php } ?>
Don't echo out HTML.
If you want to use
<?php echo "<h1> $title; </h1>"; ?>
you should be doing this:
<h1><?= $title;?></h1>
I am generating a lot of HTML code via PHP, but I need to store it in a variable, not display it immediately. But I want to be able to break out of PHP so my code isnt a giant string.
for example (but actual code will be much larger):
<?php
$content = '<div>
<span>text</span>
link
</div>';
?>
I want to do something like this:
<?php
$content =
?>
<div>
<span>text</span>
link
</div>
<?php
;
?>
But I know this will not return the html as a value it will just print it to the document.
But is there a way to do this tho?
Thanks!
You can use output buffering:
<?php
ob_start();
?>
<div>
<span>text</span>
link
</div>
<?php
$content = ob_get_clean();
?>
Or a slightly different method is HEREDOC syntax:
<?php
$content = <<<EOT
<div>
<span>text</span>
link
</div>
EOT;
?>
Try this:
<?php
$var = <<<EOD
my long string
EOD;
echo $var;
?>
(edit done, but one has edit faster than me :))
In my opinion, you should look into a template engine such as Smarty. It can help you take some of the ugliness out of hardcoding HTML into the PHP file, and can help make the code more manageable.
You could store the html in an html file and read that file into a variable.
While still technically a string, you might find the documentation on PHP's heredoc to be an entertaining read:
heredoc syntax
$content = <<<EOT
<div>
<span>text</span>
link
</div>
EOT;
Use heredoc syntax.