Newbie question

Griffin

when i crreated webpages in HTML i put the metta tags in between the <head> tags.

Ok here is my question 😃

When i use PHP and i call upon headers.inc from the index.php with this command

<?php require_once($DOCUMENT_ROOT . '/header.inc'); ?>

do i place the metta tags in the header.inc file? or in index.php.

i presume it would be header.inc, but how do i put unique descriptions on everypage?

is it possible to leave the metta tags out the header.inc and just have them in index.php ,links.php etc

thank u

eoghain

If the only information in the header.inc is standard HTML then you don't need the <?php and ?> tags. If you are going to need to do some processing in that file then you will need the <?php and ?> tags.

In my personal oppinion I believe that if you are going to code a dynamic web page (and that is what php is coding) then all of your pages that have any php in them should be completely php and read like a program. They should all start and end with <?php and ?> and the only other places that you will have HTML tags will be in output strings. Or separate files that are dedicated to the HTML.

I'll tell you there is nothing worse than trying to debug someones work when all of the php tags are interspersed with HTML it's a nightmare. Get used to the idea that you are programming with PHP and forget all about HTML it's only the format of the data that you are outputting with your PHP program.

Again that's just my 2 cents, but I feel if you go that route you will be much happier with your results and have less trouble debugging your code.

tbach2

amen to eoghain.

Now, how does one do that? Look into the various template scripts around. I personally use phplib (am I a dinosaur?), but there are other solutions like that around.

Take the time to get familiar with templates. You'll be miles ahead 🙂

The way it works is this: you do all your computations, database retrieval, etc, then insert the values into the template and print it.

You'll have to look at the various template scripts for more details

Griffin

my header.inc contains php.

but my question was where to i place my metta tags? in the header.inc or index.php file?

as index.php is called upon before header.inc i would assume the index.php file. but when i check the coding for phpBB or example there metta tags r in the overall_header.tpl file.

eoghain is there a metta tag code for php?

eoghain

I'm sorry I thought you were talking about the <?php and ?> tags. You mean actual <meta> tags. Place them where it makes sence to have them. If your header.inc is used by all of your pages but you want different information for each page, you should either make the header.inc php code generate the <meta> tags for you dynamically, or you should put them in the script that is actually going to be called by the browser.

Or take tbach2's advice and use a templating engine and populate your meta tags that way, again they can be populated by either the header.inc or your main page that includes header.inc.

Griffin

thanks for all your help fellas

make the header.inc php code generate the <meta> tags for you dynamically,

i might check out how to do this, do u know where i could learn more about this?
i checked my PHP bible book , but seems to be no topic about this.

eoghain

It's the same as having PHP generate anything for you dynamically. I don't know your particular needs so I can't point to anything specific.

But you could have your header check the $_SERVER variables to determine what script is being run and then output the appropriate tags.