PHP generating HTML

[benjy]

How do i make PHP generate a html code? by using varables and what not

[cgraz]

$table = "<table width='400' height='200' border='0'>";
$table .= "<tr><td width='200'>nothing</td>";
$table .= "<td width='200'>nothing</td></tr></table>";

echo $table;

I don't see why you'd want to do this. Just jump in and out of php.

<?

fake_function("parameter1", "parameter2");

echo "more code here";

?>

<table width="400" height="200"> 

more tables here

<?

echo "back into php";

?>

Cgraz

[trooper]

The post above does what you want however there is a very good reason for NOT having php and html in the same page.

That reason is readbility. If you mix both types of code in the same page then it make it very difficult to read and maintain (expecially if you have a huge page).

I would personally do what was suggested in the first instance, use php to create the html and then put that resulting php variable into the html page.

Anyone else got any thoughts on mixing php and html in the same page?

HTH

GM

[acidbox]

I mix php and HTML all the time. I find it best to jump out of php mode when I have a block of html. Not only is it easier to read in most color-coded php scripting tools, it makes customizing the html code a LOT easier when you have to change some of it down the road.

[getDizzle]

I like to use the define() function in a separate config file. I write very large classes and hate how ugly various echo's look in my code. So, in a config file I put something like:

define ("TR_BEGIN", "<tr>\n");
define ("TR_END", "</tr>\n");
define ("TD_BEGIN", "<td class=\"");
define ("TD_CLOSE", "\">");
define ("TD_END", "</td>\n");
define ("A_BEGIN", "<a href=\"");
define ("A_CLOSE", "\">");
define ("A_END", "</a>");

So, in my php file I do:

<?php
echo (TR_BEGIN);
echo (TD_BEGIN)."css_style".(TD_CLOSE).$sString.(TD_END);
echo (TR_END);

// or
echo (A_BEGIN)."someurl.com".(A_CLOSE)."Some Link".(A_END);

?>

I just thing this looks a lot cleaner and makes debugging large classes much easier.

[Norman_Graham]

Hey ... getDizzle. That's pretty cool. I never thought of doing that. Does it get unwieldy after a while, like if you have hundreds of these constants?

Norman

[getDizzle]

Not really, Norman. Because the only time I really echo html from PHP is when I'm outputting multiple rows from mysql or multidimensional arrays. I try to write my apps with as little php in the front end as possible. That's why I write classes and includes and my front end page looks something like:

Bunch of html... then...
<?= $classInstance->sName ?>
<?= $classInstance->sEmail ?>
more html

You get the idea. I like to instantiate a class with input, process some stuff, use that class or and extended class as a "container" to hold my data, then output with short php code snippets. So when I do have to echo from within my PHP I can use a config file with the html parameters predefined... and since I don't do this much it doesn't get too hairy.

I write a lot of C# apps with .NET so I think that's where I got so picky with my PHP code.

Hope this helps 🙂

[feldon23]

This is sort of a holy war like Windows vs Mac.

I am FIRMLY on the side that if you are doing more than 3 lines of HTML, by all means, jump out of PHP.