PHP file_get_contents with php intact?

Question

As opposed to using an include, which executes the included php in the file...is it possible to save the contents of a php file to a variable - but with the php still intact and executable?

My goal looks something like:

$template = some_imaginary_include_function('myfile.php');
foreach($list_of_blogs as $blog) {
    // somehow get blog content in template and render template;
}

I know thats a dumb example...but I hope it illustrates the general idea. If I have to loop through the template 50 times on a page (say it is a list of blogs), it seems dumb to actually run and include for each.

Am I wrong? Is there a way to do this?

Answer 1

Write a function in the included PHP script that returns the desired output. Define a constant in the main PHP script. In the included PHP script, check for absence of said constant and echo the return value of the function if this is the case.

Answer 2

how about this

function getTemplate($file) {

    ob_start(); // start output buffer

    include $file;
    $template = ob_get_contents(); // get contents of buffer
    ob_end_clean();
    return $template;


}

Basically this will get whatever $file is, and parse it with PHP, then it will return the output as a variable.

Answer 3

Even though it is often purported to be evil, you could try using eval() along with get_file_contents()

Answer 4

If you're developing in 5.3 it's much easier but even on 5.2 you can use what's called an anonymous function to do this.

An anonymous function will allow you to pass code around as a variable. To load this code from a file you may have to file_get_bytes into a string, eval that, then put in in a variable but you get the point I hope.

5.3: Anonymous functions

5.2: create_function

Answer 5

Doing the include into the loop is not SO dumb.

All variables defined before the include will be accessible into your template.

Keep it simple !

== EDIT ==

Or maybe you could improve alex's answer :

function getTemplate($file, $template_params = array()) {

    ob_start(); // start output buffer
    extract($template_params); // see PHPDoc
    // from here $var1 will be accessible with value "value1"
    // so your template may contain references to $var1

    include $file;
    $template = ob_get_contents(); // get contents of buffer
    ob_end_clean();
    return $template;

}
echo getTemplate('your_template.php', array('var1' => 'value1'));

(Not so simple anymore ^^)

Answer 6

By using $content = file_get_contents('/path/to/your/file.php'); all the PHP tags will be preserved, you can then eval() or tokenize them to do whatever you want.