Writing a control panel script to modify php files

Question

I have a PHP file that contains a lot of "if" and "else" statements that determine what content a user sees (let's called this a block). I constantly have to modify this file (let's call it output.php), but it's a bit cumbersome with just a text editor.

What I want to do is use a simple web interface to modify output.php. I was thinking of using a PHP script that would break up output.php into chunks with links to forms where can I can modify each chunk. Here's an example:

output.php format:

<block A>
   title = ...
   description = ...
<block B>
   title = ...
   description = ...
...

script that modifies output.php

<Link to a form that I can use to edit block A, and save>
<Link to a form that I can use to edit block B, and save>
...
<buttons that let me add new blocks, etc.>

It's just a simple interface that lets me edit output.php. I was wondering if there's an easy method to do this in PHP?

Also, would anyone recommend that I start using databases to manage this data? It started off from just two blocks of data with an if/else statement, but now there's going to be up to a hundred blocks.

Answer 1

Why not just put each "block" in its own file and use include/require?

Although, yeah, if this is basically a content management system, you should probably use a database. Or, use a content management system that's already been built, like WordPress.

Answer 2

Start using database and relations, create one-to-many relation between user table (users) and access table (allowed parts).