RE: [PHP Template] Template Discussion

[email protected] ("Peter Kocks") Wed, 22 Mar 2000 10:45:10 -0800

Newsgroups	php.template
Message-ID	<[email protected]>

Perhaps I missed something earlier, and if I did, I
apologize, but it seems to me that the goal of providing
template functionality is to create a mechanism by which
non-php coders (designers) could easily put together part of
a web page using HTML and some tags for inserting php code.
Yes?

If so, I don't see why this cannot be done with php directly
and a simple use of here-docs.  The template would be a here
doc that gets incorporated by php wherever it needs to:

Here is an example:

File called designer.tmp:

---------------------------------------
print <<< END;

<HTML>
	The current date is $date <p>

	A table containing customers follows:<p>
	{$cust.table()}
</HTML>
END;
---------------------------------------

A php program would set $date equal to the current date and
create an object called "cust" with a method called table()
that would print out a table listing customers.  It would
then do an include of designer.tmp.  I'm not sure the
{$cust.table()} syntax will work, but I can't see any reason
that it should not.

To make things even easier, one could create a php function
called template(filename) that, like include, would load a
file but it would treat it as a here doc.

The only thing missing that I see is conditionals, but if
you're going down that route, you're probably in php land
anyway.

my 3 cents worth...

--pk