Hello all,

I'm creating a template engine to replace placeholder strings in my html template with dynamic content served by a function. To do this I have written the following template processor:

   1. function load_template()
   2. {
   3.     $template_file = "template.html";
   4.     $template = fread(fopen($template_file, 'r'), filesize($template_file));
   5.     $template_vars = array('{MAIN}' => bodyContent(), '{NAV}' => navContent(), '{TITLE}' => $title);
   6.  

   7.     function template_eval (&$template, &$template_vars)
   8.     {
   9.         return strtr($template, $template_vars);
  10.     }
  11.  

  12.     echo template_eval($template, $template_vars);
  13. }
  14.  

  15. load_template();

which is called by a page like so:

   1. <?php
   2. $title = "Example Title";
   3.  

   4. function navContent()
   5. {
   6. ?>
   7.                     <h1>Page Links:</h1>
   8.                     <ul>
   9.                         <li><a href="">Link 1</a></li>
  10.                         <li><a href="">Link 2</a></li>
  11.                         <li><a href="">Link 3</a></li>
  12.                     </ul>
  13. <?php
  14. }
  15.  

  16. function bodyContent()
  17. {
  18.     ?>
  19.  

  20.                     <h1>Example Title 1</h1>
  21.                     <p>Example Content 1</p>
  22.                     <h1>Example Title 2</h1>
  23.                     <p>Example Content 2</p>
  24.                     <h1>Example Title 3</h1>
  25.                     <p>Example Content 3</p>
  26. <?php
  27. }
  28.  

  29.     require_once (URL."/test_templateProcessor.php");
  30. ?>

Unfortunately, the content fails to be placed into the appropriate place in the template but, rather, ends on top of the template as can be seen here: here.

I'm not quite sure why it does this, so any insight would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance for any and all help!

Jordan

    [man]strtr/man does character translation. You probably want to use [man]str_replace/man instead.

    By the way, instead of fread(fopen($template_file, 'r'), filesize($template_file)), use [man]file_get_contents/man.

      Thanks for the reply, I have changed my code to use str_replace() rather than strtr() as suggested:

      <?php
function load_template()
{
    $template_file = "template.html";
    $template = fread(fopen($template_file, 'r'), filesize($template_file));
    $template_vars = array('{MAIN}', '{NAV}', '{TITLE}');
    $template_vals = array(bodyContent(), navContent(), $title);

function template_eval (&$template, &$template_vars, &$template_vals)
{
    return str_replace($template_vars, $template_vals, $template);
}

echo template_eval($template, $template_vars, $template_vals);
}

load_template();
?>

      But get the same result as can be seen here.

      Thanks for your suggestion.

      ~Jordan

        Sorry, I got a little over zealous and didn't read your post in its entirety. I updated the code to use file_get_contents() rather than fread() but have the same result. (Although I did notice that the page loaded faster)

        <?php
function load_template()
{
    $template_file = "template.html";
    $template = file_get_contents($template_file);
    $template_vars = array('{MAIN}', '{NAV}', '{TITLE}');
    $template_vals = array(bodyContent(), navContent(), $title);

function template_eval (&$template, &$template_vars, &$template_vals)
{
    return str_replace($template_vars, $template_vals, $template);
}

echo template_eval($template, $template_vars, $template_vals);
}

load_template();
?>

        Thanks for the suggestions

        ~Jordan

          The problem is that navContent() and bodyContent() don't return anything, they output it instead. So as soon as you call them in load_template(), that text is sent out to the browser (and the functions return nothing). That happens long before the return value of template_eval() is echoed.

          What you're after here is heredoc syntax:

          return <<<EOF
blah blah blah and another "blah".
EOF;

          PS: strtr() would do the job, here.

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