Pass variables into remote include file

bkwds

Hi,

I am a freelance website developer, and I am trying to build a "control panel" for my clients.

This is my situation:

I have all of the essential files on "my" server. I want to include my core files into the files on the client's server, so that every control panel uses the same files for formatting, among other things. In order to have client-specific control panels, I need to pass variables from the client's files into my files, before they are parsed and inserted into the client's files.

This might make more sense if you look at my code/files:

index.php (on client's server)

<?php

require("site_info.php");
require("http://www.mydomain.com/Control_Panel/header.php");

// Code specific to index.php

require("http://www.mydomain.com/Control_Panel/footer.php");

?>

site_info.php (on client's server)

<?php

$site_url = "http://www.clientdomain.com";
$site_name = "Client's Website's Name";

?>

Shortened version of header.php (on my server)

<html>
<head>

<title>Control Panel for <?php echo $site_name; ?></title>
</head>

<!-- rest of header.php code -->

Since header.php is parsed on my server before it is used my the client's server, $site_name is empty, and the output looks like this:

<html>
<head>

<title>Control Panel for </title>
</head>

<!-- rest of header.php code -->

I'm looking for a way to pass variables into my files before they are parsed. I've tried using session variables and they didn't work. I can't pass them as $_GET variables because I also need to pass MySQL information.

Is there any other way to include a file from a remote location, and use local variables inside the remote file?

thanks for taking the time to read through all of that,

Kyle
B&K Web Design Solutions

bkwds

I guess a more generic way to ask my question is:

Is there a way to include/use remote php code inside of my local file (as opposed to including the output of a remote php file)?

The only solution that I've come up with is to have remote functions to print out everything, and pass the local variables as function arguments. Any thoughts on that?

Kyle
B&K Web Design Solutions

mikell

Maybe you could try changing the file extensions of your include files...for example, change header.php to header.phps on your server and that way they will be served up exactly as they are, without being interpreted as php scripts. Just a thought...the idea of including files from another server has never crossed my mind.

Also, if you need to include stuff you don't want others to see, like mysql passwords or whatever, you would need to find a way to restrict access to those .phps files...maybe by ip address or something.

bkwds

By changing the files on my server to have a .txt extension, they did exactly what I wanted, and what you just described. Would it be safer to have them as .phps rather than .txt?

My MySQL information actually doesn't "go" anywhere now that I got it working the way I wanted it to. The MySQL information is hosted on the client's server, and the files on my server (that get included into the client's server's files) are just an algorithm to extract and process the database contents. I'm always trying to improve security, so I'll keep your comment in consideration.

Thanks for responding and for the help.

Kyle
B&K Web Design Solutions

mikell

Glad to hear that helped! As for the file extension, txt is fine. phps (php source) is just a common extension for that use and people usually have apache configured to make the browser highlight the syntax for you.