How do guys suggest to share a constants file between PHP and JavaScript, in order not to repeat code? XML file? I am assuming mixing up javascipt inside PHP would not be the right solution!? Thanks
+2
A:
http://php.net/manual/en/book.json.php
I would say use json. It is native to the javascript and there is a parser library for the php.
consider the following:
json:
{constants : { var1 : "value 1", var2 : "value 2", var3 : "value 3"}}
and then read it into php:
$const = json_decode(json_string);
This gives you the object $const with properties like $const->{'var1'} returning "value 1".
in JavaScript this would be:
var const = eval(json_string);
and would give you const.constants.var1 == "value 1".
Easiest implementation in real terms for js is:
<script type="text/javascript" src="json_constants_file.js"></script>
When added the html output you instantly have a constants object with the other objects as its children.
Gabriel
2010-05-06 13:04:39
+1 Seems like the simplest solution. @OP: On the Javascript side, you can either load the constants separately, or (since that seems wasteful) have a build process that pre-pends them to your Javascript file (preceded by `var constants = ` and followed by `;` to make the expression work).
T.J. Crowder
2010-05-06 13:12:44
Just to make sure I understood, I would first read in PHP with file_get_contents the constants file, and then, inside the script tags I would do var constants = "the result string" ?
Luis
2010-05-06 13:33:46
and would I have to do that in every php file on my site?
Luis
2010-05-06 13:35:49
actually you could lazy load the json file as javascript and just work with the objects directly if that is what you needed. I would probably just create a php file for loading constants and include it where I needed it.
Gabriel
2010-05-07 04:03:27
I edited it to be more of an example. Hope that helps.
Gabriel
2010-05-07 04:13:21
A:
Config variables to be shared by both PHP and JavaScript could easily be stored as XML, yes. JSON might be a better solution, though, as it requires minimal effort to parse - JS handles it natively, and PHP turns it into an array with json_decode.
ceejayoz
2010-05-06 13:04:54