Problem with objects/loopage

[mattd123]

I decided that objects would be the best thing to use for the forum I'm making (easier/safer to make templates), but came into a problem - the forums themselves! But, as I have very little experience with objects, I was bound to come into some obstacles 🙁

I need a way to loop through the topics, and each time, including and replacing the specific parts of the HTML page with the PHP generated parts. That probably didn't make much sense, so I'll just show you what I have atm, and what kind of works...

Main PHP:

$forum = new Template("templates/$cur_template/viewforum.tpl");
$content = '';

// Table headers here (title, replies etc etc)

  		$result2 = // Query to to select topics from DB
  		$num = mysql_num_rows($result2);

  		if ($num > 0) {

	$i = 0;
  		while ($row2 = mysql_fetch_array($result2)) { 
  		$i++;      		

  		// Set the parameters
	$forum->set_params(array( 
  	       		"TOPIC_ICON" => $row2['icon'],
  	       		"TOPIC_ID" => $row2['topic_id'],
  	       		"TOPIC_NAME" => $row2['name'],
  	       		"TOPIC_DESC" => $row2['description'],
  	       		"TOPIC_STARTER" => $row2['starter'], 
  	       		"TOPIC_REPLIES" => $row2['replies'],
  	       		"TOPIC_VIEWS" => $row2['views'],
  	       		"TOPIC_LPOST" => $row2['last_post'],
  	       		"TOPIC_I" => $i,
  		));  

  		$content .= $forum->swap_params();

  		}

  		echo $content;
} else {
	// No topics etc...
}

($i variable was just there for debugging, seeing how it was looping etc)

set_params Method:

function set_params($vararray)
	{ // Sets the particular values
	       	reset ($vararray); 
		foreach($vararray as $key => $value) {
			$this->parameters[$key] = $value;
		}
	} 

swap_params Method:

function swap_params()
	{
		foreach($this->parameters as $key => $value) {
			$template_name = '{' . $key . '}';
			$this->html = str_replace($template_name, $value, $this->html);
		}
		return $this->html;
	}

If you need any more information, just ask.

Thanks 🙂

EDIT: Forgot to say, this currently prints out the correct amount of rows (topics), but uses the data from the first for all of them (so I'm presuming the values of the variables aren't being overwritten...or something 😐)

[paulnaj]

Ok, seems to me that what's happening is this:

Row 1: finds and replaces tags in $this->html with data.

Row 2: Can't find tags because they were all replaced in Row 1, so no change to $this->html

As it stands, I can't tell you for sure what the answer is. If this is a pre-built template system, then maybe there's already another 'correct' way to do it.

But, if this is your own, then you could think about using ...

<?php
function swap_params() 
    { 
		$html = $this->html;
        foreach($this->parameters as $key => $value) { 
            $template_name = '{' . $key . '}'; 
            $html = str_replace($template_name, $value, $html); 
        } 
        return $html; 
    }
?>

... which will work in this case, but might mess up other things.

Paul 🙂

EDIT: typo

[mattd123]

Thank you, now it works perfectly!

Seems pretty obvious now that I read it, I guess I was presuming that each time it looped it would 'renew' the template...despite the fact I'd placed that outside of the loop

I just need to figure out a way to read only from a certain part of a file now, say between <!--START--> and <!--END--> tags or something, just so I don't end up with an abundance of template files.

thinks

Thanks again, Paul! 😃

[paulnaj]

Yeah, that's the way to go ... Dreamweaver call them 'editable regions'.

P.