Templates and functions

[Chris_Evans]

Hi there, I'm using patTempate to process my html templates using php... now I've written a function and obviously when it's called it instantly writes the results. However since I need the result to be placed within a $variable is there anyway I can write the following:

$nprocess->retrieve_news("news");

Then, stop it from being processed and shown on the page, but instead allowing it to be processed and added to a variable since the following doesn't work:

// Add the variables to the template
$tmpl->addVar("aupairagency","pagetitle","Main");
$tmpl->addVar("aupairagency","title","News @ The UK Au Pair Agency");
$tmpl->addVar("aupairagency","body",$nprocess->retrieve_news('news'));

Thanks in advance,

Chris Evans

[Chris_Evans]

A simpler way of putting it would be - how do you call a function within a variable? E.g, when you run the variable it calls the function?

I've tried:

$variable = function

But no luck,

Thanks,

Chris

[ScubaKing22]

Example:

function foo($var){
$var=$var+1;
return $var;
}

$myvar=foo($myvar);

[Chris_Evans]

Not sure, I think I'm not explaining myself correctly. 🙂

I have a variable, rather than calling it here:

--- My variable ---

I store it here:

--- My variable ---

Then call it later through a seperate class and function but within the same script.

So:

echo $myvariable

echoes the result returned by the function.

Thanks,

Chris

[ahundiak]

Have $nprocess->retrieve_news("news"); return a string instead of echo'ing.

[Chris_Evans]

How can I do that?

[ahundiak]

This function builds an option list for selecting a month:

function hs_select_month($name,$def = 0)
{
  global $now;

  if ($def == 0) $def = date('n',$now);

  $months = array(
    'Jan','Feb','Mar','Apr','May','Jun',
    'Jul','Aug','Sep','Oct','Nov','Dec');

  $str = '<select name="' . $name . '">' . NL;

  /* Cycle through */
  $id = 1;
  foreach($months as $month)
  {
    if ($id == $def) $sel = 1;
    else             $sel = 0;

$str .= hs_option($id++,$month,$sel);
  }

  /* Finish Up */
  $str .= '</select>' . NL;
  return $str;
}

Basically, just keep concatenating data on to the end of $str and then return it.

[Weedpacket]

If you don't have the option of modifying someone else's method to return a string instead of echoing, you can use the output buffering functions ([man]ob_start[/man], etc) to capture what would have been echoed, and store it in a variable.

See the manual pages for that function and its ilk for examples, but it would be something like

ob_start()
$nprocess=retrieve_news('news');
$news = ob_get_contents();
ob_end_clean();

[Chris_Evans]

I understand now, I've used that already in my code somewhere but I didn't realise what you meant. 🙂

Thanks for the help!

Chris