Seperating HTML from PHP

knickerlas

Hi everyone,
I want eventually to run a database driven site but I'm not quite there skill wise yet.
In the meantime however I'd like to at least keep my HTML and PHP seperate.

Is the best way to use 'incluse files' to output the basic HTML template or what?

I'm sure there are many opinions on this and I would appreciate hearing some!

Many thanks

Nick

ame12

Lots of alternatives:

1) Check out articles on templates for real separation between presentation (html) and code

2) Use style sheets (longterm, which you could even dynamically create using php so that every user could have their own style)

3) Use asp-style tags (its an option in php.ini) so that all references to php values are brief:

Just some basic suggestions

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Anon

using XML is definitively the only serious way to sperate code logic from prensentation (html, wml or whatever).

and it works with any server and any king of server-side scripts (not only with php).

toma42

Actually, templates do just as good of job as xml for seperating code from logic, but you don't have the flexibility of putting together a new xsl to drasticly change the apperance.

Personally, I use phplib templates for my html and wml.

knickerlas

Hi Vohm,
I think I\ll have a look at templates first but I'd like to get some beginners info on XML aswell.
Do you know of any good sources for starting out?

Cheers

Nick

knickerlas

Thanks Randy

I'll take a look at the site aswell

Cheers

Nick

knickerlas

Cheers Tom
Is PHPLib an php3 thing? or is it still current for PHP4?
I ask because I think I saw some mention of a built in Template function in PHP4. I may be wrong of course!

Do you know where I might fond PHPLib articles ( the ones here look a little dated )

Thanks

Nick

toma42

They may be dated, but they're accurate. The phplib code is ment for php3 but will work with php4.

I've put together an extension you may find useful too:
http://www.phpbuilder.com/snippet/detail.php?type=snippet&id=126

You may need to make one change in the template.inc code for php4. You'll find a line like "{$var}" in the code...change it to '{' . $var . '}'

Tom

shanx24

What makes you say that Yohm? I am interested in knowing your thoughts in more detail, although my preliminary reaction would be that XML is "definitively" NOT the only solution to separate content from logic. Templates, as Tom said, fully, satisfactorily suffice as well! On the other hand, I have found XSLT to get really messy after a certain point of sophistication in the XML (and that point is almost always reached as far as I am concerned!)

But, as I said, would love to hear your thoughts.

knickerlas

Okay,
I'll get right on it!

Thanks for all your help

Nick

smarlowe

I agree with your sentiments. I've yet to see an XML/XSL/XSLT solution that's even 1/2 as fast as PHP with templates is.

Anon

The way I personally do it is a more or less triple seperation. Though I stray from it occasionally in places, I try not to.

Basically I build a skeleton HTML page, and get the idea of how I want things displayed.

Rather than insert any content inside of the display frame/table/page, I just stick in a little: <?php echo $content ?>

In my scripts that handle all the logic and parsing and mailing and blah blah, I use something like:

$content .= "stuff";

rather than:

echo "stuff";

This way I can do all sorts of things such as go back in an alter data, validate syntax, save the output, or whatever I want to do, very easily.

Then as the third part I just make a file where I type in all my content.

Include the content at the top of the logic file, and the html display at the bottom, and viola.

Quick, fast, dreadfully easy to maintain, and I like seperating logic, content, and display.

smarlowe

You can take that one further and store your pages in a database, and deliver them with an eval statement:

(LT and GT symbols replaced with [ and ])

print "[A HREF=show_page.php?page=$page_num]";

and the show_page.php is:

[?php
include "connect.php";
include "page_display.php";
page_display($page_num);
?]

Anon

Very true, which is one of the reasons I do it that I didn't mention 🙂

It also makes developing a search engine far more forgiving, and because the files follow a standard flow bug finding is reasonably easy.

The data being in a database makes the search engine side of things even more forgiving.