Re: [PHP Template] Another batch of ideas

Andrei Zmievski wrote:
> 
> After reading through Perl's HTML::Template docs I think we can steal
> some ideas from them. Let's talk if these would be useful or not.
> 
> - Automatic escaping of variable contents when printing into the output
>   optional control through escape=true/false attribute
> 
> - Assigning values to vars inside a specific section. I'm not sure if
>   this would be useful or not.
> 
> - How template path is figured out. The HTML::Template does this:
> 
>         The file specified can be a full path - beginning with a '/'.  If it
>         isn't a full path, the path to the enclosing file is tried first.  After
>         that the path in the environment variable HTML_TEMPLATE_ROOT is tried
>         next, if it exists.  Next, the "path" new() option is consulted.  As a
>         final attempt, the filename is passed to open() directly.
> 
>   Instead of HTML_TEMPLATE_ROOT, we could have an .ini setting. It could
>   also check doc_root.
> 
> - Having a warning if trying to assign to a variable that is not
>   mentioned in the template.
> 
> - Having a parameter that specifies whether the parsed template is
>   cached.
> 
> - Having something like HTML::Template's __FIRST__, __INNER__, __LAST__
>   special variables that get activated when we're in first, middle, or
>   last iteration of the section loop. Maybe also a number __LOOPNUM__ or
>   something that is evaluated to 1, 2, 3, etc.
> 
> -Andrei
> * If it's never finished, you can't prove it doesn't work. *

I really like that last idea. But instead of __FIRST__ we should use
another prefix convention, like #VARNAME for variables internal to the
template.
So $varname for environment variables, %varname for config file
variables
and #varname for internal template variables.

Some variable ideas for sections:

#FIRST		boolean, true if in the first section loop
#INNER		boolean, true if after #FIRST
#LAST		boolean, true if in the last section loop
#PREV		int,     value of previous loop row
#LOOP		int,     value of current loop row
#NEXT		int,     value of next loop row
#EVEN		boolean, true if current #LOOP value is even
#ODD		boolean, true if current #LOOP value is odd
#TOTAL		int,     value of total number of rows

Also, we may want to define variables within sections, in
the case of nested sections with {#sectionname:varname}
By default, the current section will be assumed.

So an example, we want to color every other row different,
and output the total at the bottom:

<TABLE>
{:section myrows}


<TR>
      <TD bgcolor={:if #EVEN}#ff0000{:else}#00eeff{:/if}>
         table cell data
      </TD>
</TR>

{:/section myrows}

There were {#myrows:TOTAL} rows of data.

</TABLE>