Executing PHP scripts from HTML

dgwill

I am new to php programming. I heard that php is good to use when you want to include external files in your web pages. I have a web site, www.dcwstore.com, and I want to be able to use "includes" instead of having to put menus, logos, footers,etc. in every page. I created separate pages for each of the above and then I created a copy of my index.htm and called it indexinclude.htm. As far as I know, the indexinclude page has to have a .php extension so I renamed that page to indexinclude.php. It ran fine which is good but to make all my pages work that way, I will have to rename them all, wouldn't I? I then would have to change all of my links which would be a pain. Is there a way to execute a php script from an html page without having to rename any pages?

If they have to be renamed, is there a way to get Frontpage to read them in? If I rename the page, Frontpage just opens it up as a text file.

Thank you for any help you can give...

TheDefender

There is no easy way (especially if you don't have access to modify your php.ini file). It's best to just rename them, and your links to *.php files.

Secondly, if you want to code in PHP, find yourself a good PHP IDE, and dump the WYSIWYG editors (especially Front Page). Coding in PHP is not glamorous, and is mind boggling sometimes, when you look at all the code, but well worth it to learn.

Renaming your links shouldn't be that hard. Heck, even Notepad has a Find function in it... Yeah, it may seem like a lot of work, but it is well worth it in the end.

If you don't want to rename everything, then consider Server Side Includes (SSI) as an alternative to php if all you are planning is just to include a bunch of files anyhow. But, even with that, you may have to rename your files to *.shtml (depending on your webhost's configuration).

cyberlew15

I completeley understand how you feel it can be a huge undertaking to rewrite 100+ links however if you make a script that loads each link into a database you could search for the desired string and replace that string with the desired new string
<a href "./commonincludes.php"</a>
could be put into an array explode the string from " to " and change the links its all in the php manual