how to pre-process a PHP MVC view without using the framework?

Question

Is there any way I can pre-process a PHP view script without using a particular MVC framework?

Basically I want to render the view and pass it as an HTML string to another view. The view I'm trying to render has some references like $this->rows, and, of course, I would need to add the values of those references to the script before generating the HTML.

Is this possible?

Answer 1

The way to do it depends on the framework you're using.

But this can be done with PHP by just using nested includes.

For example

page.php

<?php include(HEADER) ?>

<?= $var ?>

<?php include(FOOTER) ?>

All variables available to page.php will be available to the header and footer views as well.

Answer 2

Yes it is completely possible. You'll want to utilize output buffering to ensure the initial view isn't displayed and then store that views output in a variable.

ob_start();
include ('/path/to/file.php');
$contents = ob_get_contents();
ob_end_clean();