When using Laravel, you can use { $variable } instead of <?php echo $variable; ?>, can you do this when you are using PHP without Laravel?
Let me see if I got you right. You want to put variable elements inside your HTML template files without using the ugly "<?php echo ...; ?>" ?
What you need is a Template engine. You could get one of these ready-to-use template system and learn how to use them (but they don't have the exact behaviour you describe) or you could code your own parser.
I personnally made my own HTML parser, its behaviour is adapted to the use I make of it. For what you need, all you need is to read HTML files and replace using a regexp
^\{ (.+) \}$
with
$($1)
I'm attempting to make a template file for a CMS that I'm making where the template file can contain variables like {username} as regular text that get replaced when the page gets included on the index.php page.
Example:
Index Page:
<?php include('templates/123/index.php'); ?>
templates/123/index.php page
<?php include('header.php'); ?>
Welcome {username}
<?php include('footer.php'); ?>
I've tried several methods; however, always run into problems because the page I'm trying to change the content on includes PHP code. Every method I try either 1) messes up because the opening and closing of PHP tags within the document OR 2) just echoes out the PHP code in the document. Is there any way that I can still achieve this? Maybe even with a class of some kind? I just want to be able to achieve this safely.
I will also be using this to where custom variables like {content1} get replaces with a php code that will be ioncubed that retrieves the data from database for content located in column1, same with {column2} {column3} and {column4}. I'm just trying to make the creation of templates extremely easy. (so I'd like to make the code work for that as well)
My preferred method of doing stuff like this involves starting my code with:
ob_start(function($c) {
$replacements = array(
"username"=>"Kolink",
"rank"=>"Awesome"
);
return preg_replace_callback("/{(\w+)}/",function($m) use ($replacements) {
return isset($replacements[$m[1]]) ? $replacements[$m[1]] : $m[0];
},$c);
});
Two steps I suggest
Load the result of your file "templates/123/index.php" into a variable. see this link for how to do it assign output of execution of PHP script to a variable?
use strtr() function to replace your placeholder i.e {username} with actual values
I think this will server your needs.
I am using PHP in combination with Smarty Templates to generate pages serverside. Currently, I am loading a page as follows:
$smarty->assign('app', file_get_contents("some_content.php"));
Where some content contains HTML with PHP tags and code inside those tags.
I would like the PHP content inside this file within the current scope (That of the script reading the file), so that a particular function I've defined is available. How would I go about doing so? All the information I can find is regarding the eval(...) function, which doesn't seem to be able to cope with the HTML/PHP mixture: would I need to perform a find/eval/replace operation to achieve the desired result, or is there a more elegant way of doing this?
From my opinion, this short snippet of the code you posted shows that something is generally wrong there :)
But nevertheless you can achieve whatever you are trying to achieve by doing the following:
ob_start();
include("some_content.php");
$result = ob_get_clean();
$smarty->assign('app', $result);
Ich, I'm such a dummkopf. There is an answer right on the PHP manual for eval, right under my nose. Here is the answer I neglected to notice.
You can use {literal}...{/literal} smarty tags to display any content in smarty templates as is. It used to transfer java scripts and other specific content.
I am building my website completely in PHP. I am trying to make it as much flexible as possible.
I have seen there are some softwares made in PHP that are able to get a HTML page, and before showing it, the PHP code recognizes the code inside brackets {PHP Code} as PHP code, runs it and only then shows the final page.
<h1>Hi My Name is {echo $name}</h1>
How can I achieve the same? I know there is Smarty Code. But I do not want to learn Smarty, I just want to know how to check a HTML page with PHP, find every bracket and threat that as PHP before showing the page..?
Can you point me somewhere?
Are you looking for PHP's basic syntax?
If you enable short_open_tags (it usually is enabled by default), this will work:
<h1>Hi My Name is <?=$name?></h1>
otherwise, this will always work:
<h1>Hi My Name is <?php echo $name; ?></h1>
PHP is already a templating language - there often is no need to add another layer of templating on top of it.
I want to keep the template files separated from the php engine
In fact, you don't
Your template files would behave as native PHP files in every way.
So, there is asolutely no [logical] reason to prefer such a strange solution over native PHP.
use the php tags for the echo statement.
<h1>Hi my name is <?php echo $name; ?></h1>
Well, just point apache to index.php which includes phtml templates into itself. Use <?php ?> instead of { }.
I have been designing websites for a while now, but there is one thing that I have never been quite sure of when using PHP and HTML. Is it better to have the whole document in PHP and echo HTML like so:
<?php
doSomething();
echo "<div id=\"some_div\">Content</div>";
?>
Or have a HTML file like so and just add in the PHP:
<html>
<body>
<?php doSomething(); ?>
<div id="some_div">Content</div>
</body>
</html>
It seems tidier to echo HTML, especially if lots of PHP gets used throughout the page, but doing so loses all formatting of the HTML i.e. colors in the IDE etc.
There are varying opinions on this. I think there are two good ways:
Use a templating engine like Smarty that completely separates code and presentation.
Use your second example, but when mixing PHP into HTML, only output variables. Do all the code logic in one block before outputting anything, or a separate file. Like so:
<?php $content = doSomething();
// complex calculations
?>
<html>
<body>
<?php echo $content; ?>
<div id="some_div">Content</div>
</body>
</html>
Most full-fledged application frameworks bring their own styles of doing this; in that case, it's usually best to follow the style provided.
I think this would depend on your group's or your own decided convention. And it can and should vary depending on what type of file you're working in. If you follow the MVC pattern then your views should be the latter. If you're writing a class or some non-output script/code then you should use the former.
Try to keep a separation of display or formatting of output and the logic that provides the data. For instance let's say you need to make a quick page that runs a simple query and outputs some data. In this case (where there is no other existing infrastructure or framework) you could place the logic in an include or in the top or the bottom of the file. Example:
<?php
# define some functions here that provide data in a raw format
?>
<html>
<body>
<?php foreach($foo = data_function($some_parameter) as $key => $value): ?>
<p>
<?=$value;?>
</p>
<?php endforeach; ?>
</body>
</html>
Or you could place the logic and function definitions in an include file or at the bottom of the file.
Now if you're producing some sort of class that has output (it really shouldn't) then you would echo the HTML or return it from the method being called. Preferably return it so that it can be output whenever and however the implementer would like.
The syntax highlighting is an important benefit of the second method, as you said. But also, if you're following good practices where logic and presentation are separated, you will naturally find that your files that contain HTML are almost entirely HTML, which then, naturally, leads to your second method again. This is the standard for MVC frameworks and the like. You'll have a bunch of files that are all PHP, doing logic, and then when that's done they'll include a presentation file which is mostly HTML with a sprinkling of PHP.
Simple:
More PHP - close HTML in PHP. When you generate HTML code in PHP, when you are doing something like a class, so it is better to make it in echo.
Less PHP - close PHP in HTML. This is stuff like just putting vars into fields of HTML stuff, like forms... And such.
The best approach is to separate the HTML from the PHP using template system or at least some kind of HTML skeleton like:
<main>
<header/>
<top-nav/>
<left-col>
<body />
</left-col>
<right-col />
<footer/>
</main>
Each node represents a template file e.g. main.php, hrader.php and so on. Than you have to separate the PHP code from the templates as something like functions.php and fineally use your second approach for template files and keeping functions clean of "echos" and HTML.
If you can, use a template engine instead.
Although it is slightly easier at first to mix your HTML and PHP, separating them makes things much easier to maintain later on.
I would recommend checking out TemplateLite which is based on Smarty but is a little more light weight.
I've reached a conclusion that using views in MVC framework e.g. Laravel, Yii, CodeIgniter is the best approach even if you are not displaying the html straight away.
Inside the view do all the echoing and looping of prepared variables, don't create or call functions there, unless formatting existing data e.g. date to specific format date('Y-m-d', strtodate(123456789)). It should be used only for creating HTML, not processing it. That's what frameworks have controllers for.
If using plain PHP, create you own view function to pass 3 variables to - html file, array of variables, and if you want to get output as string or print it straight away for the browser. I don't find a need for it as using frameworks is pretty much a standard. (I might improve the answer in the future by creating the function to get view generated HTML) Please see added edit below as a sample.
Frameworks allow you to get the HTML of the view instead of displaying it. So if you need to generate separate tables or other elements, pass the variables to a view, and return HTML.
Different fremeworks may use various type of templating languages e.g. blade. They help formatting the data, and essentially make templates easier to work with. It's also not necessary to use them for displaying data, or if forced to use it by the framework, just do required processing before posting the variables, and just "print" it using something like {{ yourVariable }} or {{ yourVariable.someProperty }}
Edit: here's a plain PHP (not framework PHP) - simple-php-view repository as a sample view library that allows to generate HTML using variables. Could be suitable for school/university projects or such where frameworks may not be allowed.
The repository allows to generate HTML at any time by calling a function and passing required variables to it, similar to frameworks. Separately generated HTML can then be combined by another view.
It depends on the context. If you are outputting a lot of HTML with attributes, you're going to get sick of escaping the quotation marks in PHP strings. However, there is no need to use ?><p><? instead of echo "<p>"; either. It's really just a matter of personal taste.
The second method is what I usually use. And it was the default method for me too. It is just to handy to get php to work inside html rather than echo out the html code. But I had to modify the httpd.conf file as my server just commented out the php code.