Include a repetitive chunk of HTML - php

I basically have a div on my site that always has the same stuff. However, this div is not present on all pages which is why I won't use the dynamic web template. I was wondering if it was possible for PHP to get the code from a document on the server and put in into the div?
Ex:
<div id="section...
then my text file contains
<p>hello</p>
Basically I want PHP to put it into the div when the user sees it.
If theres a smarter way of acheiving this I'd be open to it as well.
Thanks

Simply include() the file. The interpreter will drop out of PHP mode back into HTML mode, outputting anything it encounters.

Did you try this in the first place?
<div id="section"><?php include ('path-to-your-file') ?></div>

Just have a file with some echo statements that generate your div and then include it only when required.
How to control whether to include it or not depends on how your website is built.
For instance if you have DB entries for your pages add a column called includediv (you can probably come out with a better name...) and if that is true you include the file otherwise not.

Related

Execute the Code in a PHP Page And Echo the HTML Output

I absolutely don't post a question here in SO unless I really can't find a way to solve my problem myself. I did a lot of googling and was not able to find a solution for this one problem I am about to describe.
Here is the problem. I am creating a templated php website. With templated I mean something like below:
<?php include("header.php");?>
<div id="content">
<div id="main">
<h2><?php echo($page_title);?></h2>
<?php
echo ($page_content);
?>
</div>
<?php include("sidebar.php");?>
</div>
<?php include("footer.php");?>
As you can see here page template ECHOES the content of the $page_content variable between header and footer sections to build the page.
To keep the code clean and separated (in my own way) I have been placing the html content in .txt files (let's say page1_content.txt) and assigning the txt content to this variable ($page_content) as below:
$page_content = file_get_contents("page1_content.txt");
My problem starts when I place some php code in page1_content.txt, lets' call this file page2_content.php (yes, I change the file from .txt to .php). Then I assign the content of this file to $page_content variable as below as usual:
$page_content = file_get_contents("page2_content.php");
Now, when the page template ECHOES page2_content.php contents the php code in it is also echoed as string and not executed, but I am trying to query a database and do some stuff in this file with some php code. I mean, I want the php code inside page2_content.php to be executed and the cumulative html code to be echoed by the "echo" line inside the template file.
How can I achieve this?
Please ask me any questions if you need more info/clarification.
Thanks
EDİT:
As many people here suggested the solution was including the file. Actually, I tried including the file before but it didn't look like it was working, it broke my template, so I though I was on the wrong track and quit the "include" way of doing this. Since everybody here is advising to use include I tried that again. I replaced the php code in "page2_content.php" with a basic 1-line code just to see if it gets executed before adding generated html code without breaking the template and it worked. Apparently my php code had a problem at first place and hence broke my template execution.
Now I have changed the template structure slightly and pages using the template, and it seems to work nicely. Thanks a lot everybody. I have up-voted every answer suggesting that I use include :)
As #Ali suggested, you could include the files. The other option which I highly suggest you do not use is the eval() function.
I think what you want to do is to include your content PHP file, not echo it (as you are doing with header.php and footer.php).
echo($page_content);
Would become as below:
include("page2_content.php");
You've already done this in your footer and sidebar, just use include()

PHP includes header or footer location

I was hoping someone could help. I have just started to dabble with PHP includes for time saving in the future. For example I want to change the footer and header on a web page once (using include) instead of copying and pasting the code 30 or 40 times - oh no... a typo start again.
Which brings me to the question(s) where is it best to place this script?
<?php include("includes/headernav.html"); ?>
Can it be placed in a div, or should it be placed at the top of your code under the body?
If I want to make an image/banner include module. Can I
<?php include("includes/image.jpg"); ?>
Or is best to wrap the image in html and apply like this?
<?php include("includes/imagewrapped.html"); ?>
Do not include .jpeg files directly, use a wrapper. Only use include with other PHP files.
As for including the header, do it any way that feels natural as long as it produces valid html. There is no particular reason to declare another div element.
Hope this helps:
<?php include("includes/ui_header.php"); ?>
My page content between header and footer
<?php include("includes/ui_footer.php"); ?>
You can probably save this as a function and call that function wherever you want to display.
It doesn't matter whether you put include in any place. However, it's better to put include in the top or bottom of your code
While including headers/footers/menus on the site, please keep in mind following things:
1) Your header/footer includes(blocks) should be wrapped inside a div.
2) This way then can be differentiated and any new change to them can be done easily.
3) Its always a good practice to include a wrapper div around an element as CSS can use it for styling.
4) Your header/footer includes (blocks) should have a flexibility that even we place them in header,footer or any sidebar, they should not disturb the UI.
1) Because you are including the HTML file, you probably need to include it where you want to display it.
2) Create a function in php where you send only image URL (maybe some other parameters) and function returns the HTML code (String) which you only echo on page where you want to display it. This way you can ensure, that all images will have the same code and styling.
for example
function generateImage($url=null) {
if (isset($url)) return '<img src='.$url.' style="width: 100px; height:100px; border: 1px;" />';
else return false;
}
The better way is to include always a php file.

Minimize code size to avoid duplication of the same code

I need one advice from you. I am working on a website, which uses PHP and HTML. As the biggest part of the header and footer code will be same for many pages, I am thinking of using PHP's include to avoid code duplication. But, each of those pages requires different stylesheets and JS files included. What do you think how could I let the other file know what scripts and stylesheet to import?
Our company does this:
The header reads the filename of the page calling it when it's included.
Then, it changes the extension to '.js' and outputs that if it exists. Same for CSS.
So if I have a page "register.php", it will auto-include "register.js" and "register.css" if they exist.
Here's what I do:
<?php include("includes/headContent.php"); ?>
<title>Page title goes here!</title>
<script src="script_only_used_on_this_page"></script>
<?php
require_once("includes/siteHeader.php");
?>
Site Content Goes Here!!
<?php
require_once("includes/siteFooter.php");
?>
Head Content includes any PHP I want included in every page, as well as the opening html and head tag, and any Javascript libraries and css stylesheets I want on every page. Site header closes the /head tag, and opens the body as well as printing out my site header and some other markup that goes on every page. Finally Site Footer closes out my template. Everything in between is my content area!
There are lots of different ways you can do templating, if you wanted to create a simple include and an echoHeader() and an echoFooter() function... just have the echoHeader function accept a parameter which you would pass your javascript and CSS lines to.
you can use MVC coding pattern

How to bring previous page specific text on next page

I have 2 pages of html: a.html & b.html.
a.html contains text "hello" and a link to b.html.
When I click the link to b.html, I want the "hello" text to also come on specific place in the b.html page.
How can i do this? Kindly let me know.
To bring it along, you'll need to pass it somehow. It could be something you keep in an input element on the screen, then when you submit it (as a form) it will be available as a $_REQUEST element. You could also do this by putting your desired welcome message in a hidden element and submitting it in the same manner.
Alternatively, you could put the value you want in a URL string manually. For example, the link in a.html to go to b.html could be called by:
<a href="b.html?welcome=welcome%20to%20the%20show">
Doing things on the URL string is more PHP than html, and if your server's not setup correctly you may not be able to get values from the URL string in an HTML document. So, in that case it's probably easier just to make it a .php file. Again, not that it can't be done, but it might not be setup to work that way by default.
.html pages are static, so you'd have to copy the desired text manually into the second page.
If you want to do it via PHP, then the simplest way is to put the common text into a file, like:
my_html.html:
<p>This is the common text which should be included in both pages</p>
and
a.php:
... lots of stuff ...
<?php include('my_html.html'); ?>
... more stuff ...
and
b.php:
... other stuff ...
<?php include('my_html.html'); ?>
... more other stuff ...
It sounds like you want to "include" some common text between multiple pages. If you're limited to client-side functionality, it's possible to do this by writing some Javascript to populate an HTML element with a string via DOM, and then include that javascript on both pages. Both HTML pages would have to define the target element.
If you have server-side technology flexibility, I would suggest you look at PHP. Implement both pages as .php pages, and use include() to include a common file (e.g. common.php) in both pages.
You could use php sessions and store the text there so e.g.
a.html
<?php
session_start();
$_SESSION['session_name']="Hello";
echo $_SESSION['session_name'];
?>
b.html
<?php
session_start();
echo $session['session_name'];
?>
A session is more or less a cookie and what you are doing here is storing the string "Hello" in a cookie name "session_name". You can then display the cookies content by using the php echo command :)

Preventing jQuery from Loading

If jquery is added in globally used header.php across the site then How to stop to load jquery library only for those pages of site which doesn't need actually? If we can't use more than one header.
purpose of question is to not to penalize those page with slow loading which actually don't need.
Your site shouldn't need more than one global-header, if you opt to even use headers to begin with. If it does, just include jQuery on all pages. It's a small cached file, it won't hurt the browsing experience.
By using the google-hosted version, it may be the case that many of your uses already have it cached before they even reach your site.
I have been guilty of pounding my fist into the nail while asking everyone else to move the hammer that's in the way...
Why not tackle the problem from the other end and use jQuery to optimize the first load?
If you have big pages that are already taking a while to download, why not section off the less-performant areas and use $().load() to fill those in?
The page will load quicker (better user experience) and you don't have to be adding any additional processing to pages that don't need it.
Cheers,
-jc
assuming you are loading the jQuery file from a correctly-configured webserver (or from google's CDN), it will be cached and not re-downloaded on each page. Assuming a visitor will hit at least one page on your site that needs jQuery then you really won't gain anything by trying to remove it from loading on pages that don't use any javascript features from the library.
First, use the compressed jquery for production. It's much smaller. Second, IIRC, once jquery is downloaded with the first page, it will be cached and won't need to be retrieved from your server for each subsequent request.
Otherwise, if you really need to explicitly load jquery only on those pages that need it, you would have to have some way for the body of your page to tell header.php that it doesn't need to load jquery. If header.php is loaded before "body.php" then that's pretty hard to do without some fancy output buffering or such.
If you're using a templating system like Smarty you could have a conditional in the master page template to check a $loadjquery flag that you set in body.php before sending the whole page off to be rendered. But that's complicated too.
Your question is very general, some specific would be great, maybe even a link to the site. Personally if you are using a CMS I would try to make some sort of "flag" for that page, or if you are simply loading a page and then loading the header from that page, insert a variable before you load the header and use that as your flag for loading jQuery.
An example:
If a user wants to see www.mysite.com then the following file would be loaded: www.mysite.com/index.php with the following code:
<?php $needJQuery = true;
include('header.php');
echo 'content will go here';
include('footer.php'); ?>
header.php would include something such as this:
<?php if ($needJQuery) { ?>
<script src="/jquery/jquery-min-3.2.1.js" />
etc. for all the content that you need above/below.
<?php } ?>
For the pages that don't need jQuery loaded, you would either leave $needJQuery undefined or you would do as follows:
<?php $needJQuery = false; ?>
Hope this helps,
As stated earlier, modify the header file so it'll check for the presence of flag variable and only output the jquery headers if needed.
If you don't have the ability to modify the header file, you could load it with output buffering turned on and filter the output before it heads out to the client:
<?php
ob_start();
include('header.php');
$header = ob_get_flush();
$cleanheader = some_operation_that_removes_the_jquery_script_tags($header);
echo $cleanheader
?>

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