Conditional Templating

ThaSpY

Hello.

I'm trying for one of those sites where you have all your HTML in file A and all your PHP in file B.

<?
// Grab the template page into a variable
$template = implode('', file('template.html'));

// Set the replacements for the template page
$variables = array( "USERNAME" => "ThaSpY", "TIME" => "7:41:02 PM EST" );

// Replace the template page with their new values
while( list( $key, $value ) = each( $variables ) )
{
	$template = ereg_replace( "{" . $key . "}", $value, $template );
}

// Display page
echo $template;

/*
TEMPLATE.HTML

<html>

Welcome back, {USERNAME}<br>
Time: {TIME}

<!-- BEGIN members -->
{members.NAME} {members.PASSWORD} {members.EMAIL}<br>
<!-- END members -->

</html>
*/
?>

This is actually similar to phpBB's system (Where I got the idea, I don't know how standard it is). I got the curly brackets working, but how exactly would I code it on the PHP side for a WHILE loop or an IF ELSE statement, and then replace the above sample with the new PHP statements to complete the page.

Any help would be welcomed. Even if I am totally off with this, I'm sure you understand what I want to accomplish, and I'd appreciate if you could send me in the right direction.

Thanks!

TheDefender

smarty may be the way to go for what you are wanting to do...

ThaSpY

Thanks for the reply.

However, I wanted to stay away from third party software if I could, I wanted to keep this as simple as possible, so I can learn as I go, and just keep it simple.

TheDefender

It's up to you... Smarty isn't exactly "3rd party". (Notice the URL?), but I get what you are saying. What you are wanting to do can be such a complex thing, so reinventing the wheel can cause your head to spin in circles... Besides, there's plenty of "learning" to do with smarty, so if nothing else, you can break down it's functionality to see how to do it yourself, if you feel like reinventing the wheel like that... That's up to you. Good luck either way. (I personally use smarty.)