[Resolved] Parsing php in variable before echo to screen???

[grnyj93]

I have been beating myself over the head for the last hour searching for the answer. So here is my last ditch effort.

I have set up a simple template system for a site. The content is taken from a page using custom tags (ie [CONTENT][/CONTENT] and loaded into an array. The problem is that I now have to be able to put and execute php in the content.

The question:

Is there a function or something to parse php code stored in an array and then echo that resulting output to the browser.

Let say you have a variable:

$var = "<?php echo \"hello world\"; ?>";

Is there a way to execute this code before it gets to the screen. So that it outputs "hello world" and not "<?php echo \"hello world\"; ?>" to the screen?

[grnyj93]

It figures that as soon as I would post I would find something.

I can use eval() like below:

<?php

$contents = "<table width=\"100%\" border=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"3\">
                    <tr align=\"center\" valign=\"middle\">
                      <td width=\"150\">{php}echo \"hello world\";{/php}<img src=\"images/pages/Cat_P00.jpg\"></td>
                    </tr>
                  </table>";
preg_match("/^(.*?)\{php\{(.*?)\{\/php\}(.*?)$/",$contents,$match);
echo $match[1];
echo eval($match[2]);
echo $match[3];
?>

But I am still open to a better/easier way if anyone has any ideas.

[bradgrafelman]

Actually, I was just going to suggest the same thing before I saw your reply :p

[grnyj93]

Thanks.

I am trying to make this work. I am trying to figure out how to make it work with more than one occurance of {php}{/php} in the $contents var.

Any suggestions.

[bradgrafelman]

[man]preg_match_all/man

[grnyj93]

thank you I knew there was something like preg_match that would do all - just couldn't remember what it was called 🙂

[bradgrafelman]

Once you've solved your issue, make sure you MARK THE THREAD RESOLVED by clicking on the link at the bottom of the page.

[grnyj93]

Will do, but unfortunately I keep running into things:

Here is the code I have in the $page_info['contents'] var:

<table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3">
                        <tr align="center" valign="middle">
                          <td width="150">{PHP}echo "hello world";{/PHP}<img src="images/pages/Cat_P00.jpg">{PHP}echo "again";{/PHP}</td>
                        </tr>
                      </table>

I am using this preg_match_all right now but it isn't giving me exactly what I need:

preg_match_all("/^(.*?)\{PHP\}(.*?)\{/PHP\}(.*?)$/",$page_info['contents'],$matches);

This gives me this:

Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [0] => <table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3">
                        <tr align="center" valign="middle">
                          <td width="150">{PHP}echo "hello world";{/PHP}<img src="images/pages/Cat_P00.jpg">{PHP}echo "again";{/PHP}</td>
                        </tr>
                      </table>
        )

[1] => Array
    (
        [0] => <table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3">
                    <tr align="center" valign="middle">
                      <td width="150">
    )

[2] => Array
    (
        [0] => echo "hello world";
    )

[3] => Array
    (
        [0] => <img src="images/pages/Cat_P00.jpg">{PHP}echo "again";{/PHP}</td>
                    </tr>
                  </table>
    )

)

Which is close but not. I can't get it to break out both.

Here is my train of thought - however derailed it may be 🙂

I would use preg_match_all to get all aspects of the content (html before {PHP}, code between {PHP}{/PHP}, html between php codes and so on)
I would then basically have it

echo $matches[1][0];
echo eval($matches[2][0]);
echo $matches[3][0];

Am I on the right track with this thought or is there a better way?

[bradgrafelman]

What if you do this?

preg_match_all("/{PHP}(.*?){/PHP}/",$page_info['contents'],$matches);

Also... aren't {}s special characters in regex? Shouldn't they be escaped? I'm not a regex guru, so I'm not sure...

[grnyj93]

I am actually using [] but they screw up the forum php code display tags and I do have them escaped (for some reason it removes the escapes when it displays it).

I tried your sugestion:

preg_match_all("/{PHP}(.*?){/PHP}/",$page_info['contents'],$matches);

And it does give me both bits of php code that I need out but it doesn't give me the html segments so that I can eval() the php and output everything to the browser in the right order.

Thanks for your help with this.

[grnyj93]

for some reason I can get a regex to give me all parts of the html code except for the last part after the last {/PHP} tag???

[bradgrafelman]

Like I said, I'm no expert on Regex 🙁

[grnyj93]

K. Figured a work around (glad that headache is gone)

Here is the code I ended up with. It will work with any number of {PHP}{/PHP} tags or none at all in the content var.

if (strstr($page_info['contents'],"{PHP}")) {
			$php_in_content = 1;
			preg_match_all("/\{PHP\}(.*?)\{\/PHP\}/sS",$page_info['contents'],$matches);
			$php_segments = array_pop($matches);
			$i=0;
			foreach($php_segments as $key=>$value) {
				$page_info['contents'] = preg_replace("/(\{PHP\}$value\{\/PHP\})/","{HERE}",$page_info['contents']);
				$i++;
			}
			$html_segments = split("\{HERE\}",$page_info['contents']);			
			$html_count = count($html_segments);
		} else {
			$php_in_content = 0;
		}

if ($php_in_content == 1) {
	for ($i=0;$i<$html_count;$i++) {
		echo $html_segments[$i];
		eval($php_segments[$i]);
	}
} else {
	echo $page_info[contents];
}

I do use [] instead of {} and they are escaped out in the regex (the forum won't display them for some reason)

Anyway thanks for the help guys.

[grnyj93]

Had to make one change to the code to allow more than just simple echo "hello world"; statements

if (strstr($page_info['contents'],"{PHP}")) { 
            $php_in_content = 1; 
            preg_match_all("/{PHP}(.*?){/PHP}/sS",$page_info['contents'],$matches); 
            $php_segments = array_pop($matches); 
            $i=0; 
            foreach($php_segments as $key=>$value) {
                 $value = addcslashes($value,"[]()$"); //HAD TO ADD THIS LINE IN **************
                $page_info['contents'] = preg_replace("/({PHP}$value{/PHP})/","{HERE}",$page_info['contents']);
                $i++; 
            } 
            $html_segments = split("{HERE}",$page_info['contents']);             

            $html_count = count($html_segments); 
        } else { 
            $php_in_content = 0; 
        } 

if ($php_in_content == 1) { 
    for ($i=0;$i<$html_count;$i++) { 
        echo $html_segments[$i]; 
        eval($php_segments[$i]); 
    } 
} else { 
    echo $page_info[contents]; 
}

I suppose there are probably other characters that would have to be escaped as well to do some of the functions but I think this will work for most of the basic ones.