whats the point of buffer control?

mcshen

if i am correct,
<?
ob_start();
echo "hello";
ob_end_clean();
?>

this will not product anything. Am I right?
so, what's the point?

dalecosp

I guess there's a reason...take a look at the user-notes, bottom of http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.ob-start.php ... 🙂

Mordecai

It lets you, for lack of a better word, trap the information. You can output the information from the page, and it will catch it all into a variable if you tell it to. With this, you can parse it to your liking, and then output it to the user, if you so wish.

I use it for templating, as I can quickly replace all references of a variable throughout the entire page.

superwormy

Yeah, its great for template based things. You can essentially make up your own custom HTML tags which get replaced with whatever you want them to.

For instance, maybe you're in the VERY GOOD HABIT of seperating PHP from HTML, and your HTML guys knows NOTHING about PHP.

Instead of him having to learn PHP and learn to do:

<?php print ($myvarname); ?>

Just tell him to put this wherever he wants that variable:

<TEMPLATE:First_Name>

Obviously the second is lots more freindly to someone who JUST knows HTML.

Other things too, sometimes you want to be able to use header() ( wwww.php.net/header ) but have HTML before that call. ob_start() before anything, you can put header() calls anywhere you want.

mcshen

more of template with buffer control please. sounds interesting.

know any good tutorial?
thanks.

superwormy

<?php

ob_start();

print ("

Hello, my name is <REPLACE:First_Name>

");

$contents = ob_get_contents();

ob_end_clean();

$First_Name = "Keith";

$contents = str_replace ("<REPLACE:First_Name>", $First_Name, $contents);

print ($contents);

That will print:

Hello, my name is Keith

I leave the rest up to you, that shoulg et you started though.