dynamic loded content or includes in each page?

AliceG

Actually, I have 2 questions.

First, I need some advice, maybe, you've made something like this already. I'm building a new site, it's not very large 200 pages maybe.

I'm storing the pages-names and other informations in an array. My navigation is build dynamicaly.
I wanted to make something like this: There is only one complete page, let say index.php, with parameter this could look like this: index.php?id=3.
This page loads the content with id=3 dynamic. It is working just fine. I've wrote one function which searches the array and puts the right include of the content in the index.php-page. But now, I don't know if this was a good or bad idea. I mean, i needed to make appropriate refresh in each content-file, because content-files shouldn't be viewed directly. And what about searchengines?

Can someone tell me if this solution is a good one or should I build the site the other way, i mean make includes in every content-page and then link to the pages in the common manner.

Second:
I was wondering if there is a function which makes something similar to the meta http-equiv="refresh".

Thanx,
Alice

devinemke

the analogous thing to http-equiv="refresh" in PHP is the header() function but you shouldn't really need that with the way you are doing your site. you said you are passing a GET variable to index.php (like http://www.aliceg.com/index.php?id=3). what i usually do is have an index.php file that looks something like this:

<html>
<head>
<title>my site</title>
</head>
<body>
<? include ("main_$id.php") ?>
</body>
</html>

then i have all my content pages (main_products.php, main_contact.php. etc...) which get included based on the passed id variable. For security, you should store (or dynamically look up) all of the names of your content pages in an array and use in_array() to validate that the id being passed is in fact one of your pages.

kriek

You can use the header() function to redirect the page before anything is output to the browser.

refresh/re-direct without delay

<?php header("Location: http://$SERVER_NAME/page.php"); ?>

refresh/redirect with delay

<?php header("refresh: 5; url=http://$SERVER_NAME/page.php"); ?>

To be sure that you aren't sending anything to the browser prior to the header() command use output buffering with ob_start() and ob_end_flush()

<?php ob_start(); ?>

// your script here

<?php ob_end_flush(); ?>

Although ob_end_flush() isn't needed in MOST cases because it is called automatically at the end of script execution by PHP itself when output buffering is turned on either in the php.ini or by calling ob_start()

AliceG

Thanx,

I see, the idea of including the content was not as bad, as I've thought.
Now I'm wondering how are such sites handled by google or yahoo. There are no pages, only the one index.php with id-parameter.

Alice

kriek

Google seems to have no problems indexing or following dynamic pages or query strings. Although Google does limit the amount of dynamic pages it indexes. I gather that many search engines don't index dynamic pages with query strings or session IDs because of the danger that the spider/bot gets trapped in a loop.

We are able to index dynamically generated pages. However, because our web crawler can easily overwhelm and crash sites serving dynamic content, we limit the amount of dynamic pages we index.

j007w

Hi,
I'm very new at this and am trying to following the instructions from posts. I'm following the directions on using one index.php page as a template to add content from ther pages.
Questions are:
1) If my site has 100 pages, do I need to put all 100 links into the switch on the index.php page?

<?php
switch ($x):

case bus_index:
include ('business/bus_index.php');
break;
case bus_bgcheck:
include ('busienss/bus_bgcheck.php');
break;
case premp:
include ('business/preemp.php');
break;
//and so on

endswitch;
include ("footer.php");
?>

2) how do I make the site more secure by the following comment? Example, please?

"For security, you should store (or dynamically look up) all of the names of your content pages in an array and use in_array() to validate that the id being passed is in fact one of your pages."

Thanks a bunch.
Joseph

AliceG

Hi j007w,

You could do this but it's not very good solution. The better way is to write an array with all your pages, with something like id or ather name for the page. Then you can write one function and call it in your index file. The function should search the array and choose the write file to include. To do this, you must pass a parameter with the Url.

Ok, something like this.

your navigation schuld have links, which look like this:

and the array:

function storeCategory(){
$category = array(
0 => array("id" => 145, "name" => "Theme x", "page"=> "theme_x.php"),
1 => array("id" => 146, "name" => "Theme y", "page"=> "theme_y.php"),
);
return $category;
}
And in you function you should do something like this:

function getContent($id){
$content = storeCategory();
for($x=0; $x<sizeof($content); $x++){
if (rtrim(ltrim($content[$x]["id"])) == $id){
$print_content = rtrim(ltrim($content[$x]["page"]));
}
return $print_content;
}

Now you need to call the function: getContent where you need to include your content-page. For example:
if($id){
$link = get_content($id);
include("$link");
}

It's better to do this with database, where you can store all your content pages but i needed a solution without db so i found this out.

Alice

j007w

Hi AliceG,

Thanks for helping me out. I'm a little lost trying to understand the example you gave. For the following, do I need to put all my pages (100 or so when the site's done) in the array?

Would you please explain it to me? Thanks so much.

Joseph

netmastan

hi,

I have seen in phpnuke ..that u can add pages the following way..

index.php?file=urpagename

ie.index.php?file=details

so u can add as many as file u want this way... here details=details.php.

u can't run index.php?file=details.php. And also u can't run details.php file without index.php ..cool hah

there are no use of array.I don't know how they did it.there are must be smart code.

Anyone can help us here.

feldon23

Incredibly smart code that takes 5 minutes to load the page. :eek:

netmastan

Can u give me an example.. that takes 5 min to load a page ??

please fix ur system clock or your watch 😉

AliceG

Hi j007w

I'm a little lost trying to understand the example you gave. For the following, do I need to put all my pages (100 or so when the site's done) in the array?

Yes, you should do something like this:
function storeCategory(){
$category = array(
0 => array("id" => 145, "name" => "Theme x", "page"=> "theme_x.php"),
1 => array("id" => 146, "name" => "Theme y", "page"=> "theme_y.php"),
);
return $category;
}
and put all you pages there, I know its much work if you have 100 or more pages.

But with this function
function getContent($id){
$content = storeCategory();
for($x=0; $x<sizeof($content); $x++){
if (rtrim(ltrim($content[$x]["id"])) == $id){
$print_content = rtrim(ltrim($content[$x]["page"]));
}
return $print_content;
}
your index.php file can include the right content dynamicly.
With a switch statement you would need 100 or more cases:

<?php
switch ($x):
case bus_index:
include ('business/bus_index.php');
break;
case bus_bgcheck:
include ('busienss/bus_bgcheck.php');
break;
case premp:
include ('business/preemp.php');
break;
//and so on for so many pages you have
?>

This would be more work, i think.
With this array you can also build your whole navigation dynamicly, if you need, so you see, you need only once do the hard work ( write the array) and use this for many purpose, it's more efficient than the other way.

Alice