From ASP to PHP: converting ASP Subroutines

[ianderso]

I am faced with the wonderful task of converting several ASP-based web apps to PHP. Most of the conversion is moving along smoothly, considering my PHP newbie status, though I've encountered one major snag. One of these apps relies heavily upon ASP Subroutines. 13 of them are stored in one include file, and throughout the app, any number of these subroutines are called from various pages to exectute code and return HTML. Is there any way to do something similar in PHP? Obviously funtions don't cut it, because they only return a value. I need something to execute chunks of code and return HTML. Or am I going to have to do something silly like create a separate include file for each subroutine? Even if I did that, I'd have no way to pass arguments to these include files, would I? For example, I have one subroutine which takes an argument and does one of five tasks based on the argument. Would I have to create five include files for each of the five possible tasks of this one subroutine? Thanks in advance for any advice. This is driving me nuts.

--IZA

[nnichols]

Just use a set of functions that build HTML strings and return them. I know you said - "Obviously funtions don't cut it, because they only return a value." - but you must be approaching it wrong if you think that you can't convert your subs into functions.

[ianderso]

Originally posted by nnichols
you must be approaching it wrong if you think that you can't convert your subs into functions.

You're probably quite right. Now I just need to figure out how one returns a hundred or so lines of nicely formatted HTML.

[nnichols]

it is generally quite simple. It just needs some thought before you start. Having the subs already is a bonus as you already have the logic laid out, now it's just the task of converting them.

If you would like me to have a look and make some suggestions - PM me with an email address.