replacing text in a file

[Anon]

Hi there,

I'm building a Web application that is to send e-mail
to users of the app. For that purpose I have some text-files in a directory containing the text of the various kinds of e-mails I want to send. It doesn't stay this simple, because I'd like to use these textfiles as 'templates': I want to do variable substitutions on them.

For example, the text:
This is a message for $email
Should be replaced by:
This is a message for [e-mail]

How do I do that?

I tried ereg_replace as follows:
ereg_replace("\$([[:alnum:]]*)", ${"\1"}, $line)
On every $line of the text-message. Obviously, this doesn't work.

Does anybody know a quick way to solve my problem, or am I to write some slow and ugly code myself?

TIA,

Vincent

[Anon]

Well, I've been happily hacking away, and came up with the following:

$file = ("template_email");
$text = "";
for ($i = 0; $i < count($file); $i++) {
while (ereg("\$([[:alnum:]]*)", $mail[$i], $regs)) {
$file[$i] = str_replace($regs[0], ${$regs[1]}, $file[$i]);
}
}

And in the end, the array $file contains the original file, with variables replaced by the values of the variables.

Maybe anybody out here knows a faster solution? (Or maybe, distantly maybe, someone else has a use for this? :-)

Greetings,

Vincent

[Anon]

Hmm, too difficult maybe.
Why not:

$email = "vincenter@...nl";
$template = include("template1.inc");
Simple!

[Anon]

That is indeed a very easy (and may I add: smart) solution! Why didn't I think of that?

Greetings, and thank you very much,

Vincent

[Anon]

Well, I've heard that programming is all about not thinking.
Be lazy and cut-and-paste and save time.

A good programmer also knows where to look for solutions. Forums and manuals etc.

And, Yes, god forgives you 🙂