Preprocessing buffer

Groznak

Hi,

I'm looking for a way to see my code just before it's being processed.

For example: I have a script with some includes/requires and would like to see the resulting script with the includes/requires already added to the current script.

file1.php
<?php
echo "I am file1.php\n";
//some more stuff here for file1.php
?>

file2.php
<?php
echo "I am file2.php\n";
//some more stuff here for file2.php
?>

file3.php
<?php
include("file1.php");
include("file2.php");

echo "I am file3.php\n";
?>

The file3.php script after the includes should look something like this:

<?php
echo "I am file1.php\n";
//some more stuff here for file1.php
echo "I am file2.php\n";
//some more stuff here for file2.php

echo "I am file3.php\n";
?>

Is there any way to see this resulting file from any PHP script?

I was thinking about command-line options but after looking in sites any of the possibilites suited my needs.

Can somebody help me?

Thanks in advance.

bradgrafelman

Groznak wrote:
Is there any way to see this resulting file from any PHP script?

What do you mean by "see" ? There is never a script that looks like that - the output is the same, though.

The point is that include() doesn't insert code from another script, it loads another script and executes it.

So, perhaps you could explain what your "needs" are and we can point you in the right direction?

wilku

I think I know what you want to achieve, but I don't think it's possible.
It isn't so, that php loads all included files at the beginning and then runs the whole script. It runs the script, loads included files when it sees the include statement and processes that file. Then it goes to another line in the first file etc.

This means the "final" code isn't known to php parser at the beginning of running the script.

The only solution I can think of is to write your own "parser" that will find all include statements (as well as include_once, require and require_once) and change that to the contents of the files in the result. With include_once and require_once you'd have to check if the file was included yet or not. You'd have to "parse" the included file as well (so it would have to be somehowe recursive) for it can include other files. You'd have some problems deciding which paths are relative and to what root or if part of the paths are variables. But I think it's feasible if you don't use very complicated paths.

Groznak

Ok. So, the key point is that the files are not loaded and then run, they are processed as they are included/required in the file.

I will keep in mind the idea for the script.

Thanks for your help!