I want to conditionally output HTML to generate a page, so what's the easiest way to echo multiline snippets of HTML in PHP 4+? Would I need to use a template framework like SmartyPants?
echo '<html>' + '\n'; // I'm sure there's a better way!
echo '<head>' + '\n';
echo '</head>' + '\n';
echo '<body>' + '\n';
echo '</body>' + '\n';
echo '</html>' + '\n';
You could use the alternative syntax alternative syntax for control structures and break out of php:
<?php if ($something): ?>
<some /> <tags /> <etc />
<?=$shortButControversialWayOfPrintingAVariable ?>
<?php /* A comment not visible in the HTML but is a bit of a pain to write */ ?>
<?php else: ?>
<!-- else -->
<?php endif; ?>
try like this:
$variable = <<<XYZ
<html>
<body>
</body>
</html>
XYZ;
echo $variable;
I am partial to this style:
<html>
<head>
<% if (X)
{
%> <title>Definitely X</title>
<% }
else
{
%> <title>Totally not X</title>
<% }
%> </head>
</html>
I do use ASP-style tags, yes. The blending of PHP and HTML looks super-readable to my eyes. The trick is in getting the <% and %> markers just right.
There's heredoc, where you do a thing like this:
<?php
$var = <<< BUFF
<html>
<lmnop />
</html>
BUFF;
?>
The string following the <<< becomes the token that indicates when to stop buffering and resume parsing. As above, to invoke it, YOU MUST HAVE NO LEADING SPACES OR INDENTATIONS, must be just that word and a semicolon on that line.
PHP Manual has more on this.
You can do a few things:
if(condition){
?>
<!-- HTML here -->
<?
}
if(condition){
echo "HTML here";
}
With echos, if you wish to use double quotes in your HTML you must use single quote echos like so:
echo '<input type="text">';
Or you can escape them like so:
echo "<input type=\"text\">";
As for template systems, Smarty is good for separating the design (Presentation Logic) from the coding (Business Logic). It makes the code a lot cleaner and easier to maintain.
If you have any more questions feel free to leave a comment.
Best of Luck!!
Basically you can put HTML anywhere outside of PHP tags. It's also very beneficial to do all your necessary data processing before displaying any data, in order to separate logic and presentation.
The data display itself could be at the bottom of the same PHP file or you could include a separate PHP file consisting of mostly HTML.
I prefer this compact style:
<?php
/* do your processing here */
?>
<html>
<head>
<title><?=$title?></title>
</head>
<body>
<?php foreach ( $something as $item ) : ?>
<p><?=$item?></p>
<?php endforeach; ?>
</body>
</html>
Note: you may need to use <?php echo $var; ?> instead of <?=$var?> depending on your PHP setup.
Another approach is put the HTML in a separate file and mark the area to change with a placeholder [[content]] in this case. (You can also use sprintf instead of the str_replace.)
$page = 'hello world';
$content = file_get_contents('html/welcome.html');
$pagecontent = str_replace('[[content]]',$content,$page);
echo($pagecontent);
Alternatively you can just output all the php stuff to the screen captured in a buffer, then write the html, then put the php output back into the page.
It might seem strange to write the php out, catch it, then write it again, but it does mean that you can do all kinds of formatting stuff (Heredocs etc),& test it outputs correctly without the hassle of the page template getting in the way. (Joomla CMS does it this way, BTW) ie:
<?php
ob_start();
echo('hello world');
$php_output = ob_get_contents();
ob_end_clean();
?>
<h1> My Template page says </h1>
<?php
echo($php_output );
?>
<hr>
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