How can I pass variables to a file included in a class in PHP?

Question

So I'm working on my own little MVC framework as a learning exercise. It's working great, but I want to be able to reference variables in my view files without $this.

So for example I have a controller object which instantiates a view object. From the controller I pass the variables to the view like this

$this->view->foo = "bar";

Then the view object includes the relevant code for the view (eg: myView.phtml). So to access "foo" in the view file I use this

echo $this->foo;

But what I would like to do, and I don't know if this is possible or wether I'm missing something obvious, but what I would like to do is reference the variables like this

echo $foo;

Without me posting the entire source, can anyone point me in the right direction?

Answer 1

You could write some code that parses your html view input and automatically modifies your entries from $foo or [foo] to $this->foo.

So you could put something like this in your html view:

<p>[foo]</p>

and then have some view code parse the file and change all instances of [foo] to the value of $this->foo. So your output becomes:

<p>I'm the foo value</p>

Or, you could use something like Smarty - it does this for you and has many other reasons to use it too.

Answer 2

Have you tried extract? You'll have to add a method to put all your variables into an array. The only real limitation is this makes the variables read only.

Answer 3

If you would like every variable in the view object to be availble inside the view, you could add your variables to a property of the view object that is an array and then use extract() to make them available:

$this->view->variables['foo'] = 'bar';

extract($this->view->variables); // now $foo = 'bar';

I'm not a big fan of extract(), but this would accomplish what you are looking for.