Store PHPpage templates in database

[Tomz]

Hi,

I want to build a website that has one file (index.php) which contains only the basic elements of that page. All the content is stored inside a database (MySQL).

The content is loaded into this index.php page when the user requests it. So, the url's look something like this

http://index.php?page=news
or
http://index.php?page=book

This works fine as long as the code stored into the database is plain HTML.
The problems start as soon as I try to store php-code into the database and retreive it from index.php.

The php code is then not executed. When I do view source in my browser I can just see the php code.

I figgured that I am already using PHP in index.php to retreive the content from the database. That content then also contains php code. So it's like php code executed inside php code (anyone still following me? LOL )
Anyway, is there a way to do this?

Tom

[imnu]

I would store "pure" contents in database and write php functions to display them. The functions can reside within index.php. Use switch to direct actions.

[csousley]

I am in the middle of writing this myself. What I'm doing is anywhere I need something, either some php code, another DB query or whatever, I'm putting in a marker on the template.
Like This:

[PHP1]
[QUERY1]

and then running the function/s that work off that.

Make Sense?

[Tomz]

Hi csousley,

Thanks! Could you post an example? I don't really get it yet...

As I understand it you're putting somekind of "tags" in the template wherever you need to run PHP code (that is presumably stored in a database). How do you connect the code to these tags?

Tom

[imnu]

I am trying to get an OOP template to work. It may suit your situation very well. I posted a message here:
http://www.phpbuilder.com/board/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10250244

You need three files as shown in the exmaple. What you could do is on page.php, write db query and get values for the variables (tags) placed in the template, and assign the values to the tags ({}). Something like this:

require_once "templateclass.php"; // Include the class.
$page = new HtmlTemplate2 ("template.html");
$query ="select * from tbl_name";
$result =  mysql_query ($query);
$row = mysql_fetch_array ($result);
$page = new HtmlTemplate2 ("template.html");
	$page->SetParameter ("BG_COLOR", $row1[bg_color]); //value is from data base. Do a series of this to assign values to all tags in html template.

$page->CreatePage(); // Send the page to the browser.

I know it works for me this way. But I am having problem with using php function to assign values to variables.

Hope this helps.

[csousley]

Here is a tid-bit of the reading page:

$text_count = substr_count($template_content, "[TextArea");
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////
for ($i_text=1; $i_text<($text_count + 1); $i_text++) {
	$query_text = "select * from text where text_id = '".$master_id."' and text_num = '".$i_text."'";
	$result_text = mysql_query($query_text);
	$row_text = mysql_fetch_array($result_text);
	$text_text[$i_text] = $row_text[text_text];
	$text_text[$i_text] = stripslashes($text_text[$i_text]);
	$template_content = ereg_replace("\[TextArea".$i_text."\]", $text_text[$i_text]."", $template_content);
}

This one finds all the [TextArea#] tags in the template. Then pulls info from a linked table based on the $query_text line above, and puts it in [TextArea#]'s place. But you could do this with anything, like this:

$template_content = function();
// instead of //
	$template_content = ereg_replace("\[TextArea".$i_text."\]", $text_text[$i_text]."", $template_content);

Then you have the results of function() in the place of [TextArea#] and you can get rid of all that ugly query code in the for loop...

Does that help? Let me know if you need more than this.

[imnu]

I am trying to get an OOP template to work. It may suit your situation very well. I posted a message here:
http://www.phpbuilder.com/board/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10250244

You need three files as shown in the exmaple. What you could do is on page.php, write db query and get values for the variables (tags) placed in the template, and assign the values to the tags ({}). Something like this:

require_once "templateclass.php"; // Include the class.
$page = new HtmlTemplate2 ("template.html");
$query ="select * from tbl_name";
$result =  mysql_query ($query);
$row = mysql_fetch_array ($result);
$page = new HtmlTemplate2 ("template.html");
	$page->SetParameter ("BG_COLOR", $row1[bg_color]); //value is from data base. Do a series of this to assign values to all tags in html template.

$page->CreatePage(); // Send the page to the browser.

I know it works for me this way. But I am having problem with using php function to assign values to variables.

Hope this helps.

[Tomz]

Thanks guys!

This gave me some new insights to my problem. I think I'll be able to figgure this one out now 🙂

Tom