doctype declarations from function/config....good idea or bad style?

Bjom

Hi,

I had the idea to get my doctype definitions from a config file or via a function. This seems to be an efficient way of ensuring that I get them right across all of my pages.

However not many ppl seem to do it like that....is there a reason NOT to do it like this (for example):

<?php
// config.php
$settingsDoctype = array();
$settingsDoctype['xmlDec'] = '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>';
$settingsDoctype['docTypeDec'] = '<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
        "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">';
$settingsDoctype['htmlDec'] = '<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="de" lang="de">';
?>
<?php
//someview.php
require 'doctype.php';
echo $settingsDoctype['xmlDec'];
echo $settingsDoctype['docTypeDec'];
echo $settingsDoctype['htmlDec'];

echo '<head>';
echo '<title>bla</title>';
echo '</head>';
echo '<body>';
echo '<h1>blub</h1>';
echo '</body>';
echo '</html>';
?>

hope you can enlighten me

thanks in advance

Bjom

dagon

If the values are never going to change making them variables (they are not variable if they never change :-)) makes little sense. Most people use some sort of template system, so you just add them to the template file once and its done.

NogDog

Certainly it makes sense to only have them in one place; that is the whole idea behind code modularity/re-usability: you only have to edit one thing in one file when something changes. I'm not all that concerned with specifics of implementation as long as you are achieving the desired goal.

Personally, I usually create a function for all the top-of-page stuff, often with some parameters for things like page title, keyword, and description. Then in any given HTML view page I require that function file and then call the function (or in the case of something I'm building in CodeIgniter I extend the HTML helper to include my pageTop() function). Therefore in that view I only need 2 lines of code in any given view to get the page started:

<?php
require_once 'html_functions.php';
echo page_top('Title', 'list,of,keywords', 'This is the descriptions');
// . . . rest of script . . .
?>

Bjom

Thanks for your replies.

I was concerned that there is something special about that technical stuff at the top of the page. Seems that is not the case.

Of course you're right dagon, when it will never change, why make it variable, but...

I will be going with something like NogDog's approach - I'm half way through building myself a neat class that churns out the whole doctype and header stuff - either with sensible default values or with whatever costumizing is needed.

Bjom

Weedpacket

Bjom wrote:
I was concerned that there is something special about that technical stuff at the top of the page. Seems that is not the case.

Well, there is, but not as far as PHP is concerned 🙂. It identifies what type of XML document this is, so that an application reading it can render it appropriately.