Best Practice or inlcuding files (headers, footers, etc)

deco

Hi
I'm not sure what the best way to approach this is. Perhaps I am over-thinking it.

I want to include a header because its the same on every page on my site. (header.php).

I guess the part I don't like is having divs open in one file and close in another. It seems sloppy (ie #wrapper opens in header.php and closes in footer.php). At the same time if I do that it means I have multiple include statements in my php file which to some degree defeats the purpose of having a common header file.

I hope its clear what I'm trying to decide.

Thanks!

Should I have it like this:

...

<body>
<div id="wrapper">
<div id="head">
   <? include 'header.php'?>
</div>
<div id="content">
   text body here
</div>
.
.
.
</div>

==============

OR or or or

==============

header.php:

 <div id="wrapper">
   <div id="head">
       ---   header info, menu, etc   ---
   </div>

index.php:

<body>
   <? include 'header.php ?>
   <div id="content">
   .
   .
   .
   </div>
   <? include "footer.php"  ?>
   </body>

NogDog

I typically do it something like:

include_me.php:

function pageTop($title);
{
   $title = htmlentities($title);
   $nav = pageNav();
   return <<<EOD
<html>
<head><title>$title</title></head>
<body>
<div id="wrapper">
$nav
<div id="content">

EOD;
}

function pageNav()
{
   return <<<EOD
<div id='nav'>
<ul>
<!-- nav items here -->
</ul>
</div>

EOD;
}

function pageFoot()
{
   return <<<EOD
</div> <!-- content -->
<div id='foot'>The end.</div>
</body>
</html>
EOD;
}

index.php

<?php
require_once "include_me.php";
echo pageTop("Example");
?>
<h1>Main Content</h1>
<p>This is the unique content for this page.</p>
<?php
echo pageFoot();
?>

nrg_alpha

@:
Hmm.. never even thought of using a heredoc like that. Interesting...

@ whoever cares:
As far as I'm concerned, while it's not the end of the world to have say opening div tags in the include files and their closing counterparts elswhere, so long as it is clean and not missing either or opening / closing tags and the page validates, it's 'ok' I guess (confession time; my site currently has some opening tags in the body, but the closing tags in the topmenu include, as I didn't want to put the whole div content in the include file - something I corrected for the next upcoming version.. I think I prefer having each include fully contain their content with complete matching tags cleanly from here on out...)