Dumb PHP/.htm question ?

Anon

Is there anyway to get an .htm file to recognize embedded PHP code?

For example, my web site, like most, is structured so that the first page that displays is always index.htm. That's just the way it is.

That being the case, I'd like to do something very simple, like displaying today's date on my index page. But, of course, using the familiar :

<?
$today = getdate();
// now display the date, etc.
?>

does not work because an .htm file knows nothing about PHP and it just ignores the embedded code.

Is there any way to "patch" around this limitation?

craigh

the answer is that apache has to be configured to parse files ending in .htm as php files (as it is currently doing with .php files.

a workaround would be to make index.htm just a pointer to a secondary page (maybe index.php) by using a redirect in the header with 0 time.

vincentpeace

Or, instead of getting PHP to parse all your file, you could just specify a different DirectoryIndex for the directory(ies) in question. ie
<Location />
DirectoryIndex index.php
</Location>

Anon

Craig,

Does parsing .htm/.html files create a degradation in performance? I have heard that parsing .shtml files as .html files will degrade performance.

What is your opinion?

Thanks,
Bill

Anon

What do you mean by directory index? Is this akin to Windows Fat Table?

Anon

I did not understand what you meant by "0 time."

Are you saying the I should simply have the index.htm file redirect the user to another file? If so, how do I get the .htm file to recognize the PHP header function?

OTHO, I could just put a link on the index page that says "Enter Here" and then call a script that redirects them. Look kinda like a porno page idea. But it could work :-)

craigh

Bill - I really don't kow anything about whether performance would suffer. I guess that since the php engine would be parsing EVERY page you have, that might degrade the server.

Stinger- the redirect thing is not a PHP function, it is part of HTML. make a page like this and name it index.htm:

<HEAD>
<TITLE>Redirect</TITLE>
<meta HTTP-EQUIV="REFRESH" CONTENT="0; URL=index.php">
</HEAD>
<BODY>
</BODY>

then you can make your index.php page and have php commands in it.

vincentpeace

Sorry, that wasn't very clear. Assuming that you can edit either the apache configuration file, or a local .htaccess file, there is a directive called DirectoryIndex. This lists the files that apache should serve when asked for a directory, rather than a specific file.