Drupal custom module object not accessible from GUI PHP tags

Question

So I have created a custom module for Drupal 6.x and it works as I can see the desired results in the page.tpl.php page, but when I edit a page from the GUI (it allows php tags) the object is not accessible.

I can set the values in a SESSION which I can access from the GUI as well as the module but is this the correct way to do this?

Here is the error I get:

Fatal error: Call to a member function getEmail() on a non-object in /var/www/domain/includes/common.inc(1695) : eval()'d code on line 221

Call Stack
#   Time    Memory  Function    Location
1   0.0003  64108   {main}( )   ../index.php:0
2   0.0965  11659504    menu_execute_active_handler( )  ../index.php:18
3   0.1040  12626908    call_user_func_array ( )    ../menu.inc:348
4   0.1040  12627316    node_page_view( )   ../menu.inc:0
5   0.1040  12627532    node_show( )    ../node.module:1797
6   0.1040  12627848    node_view( )    ../node.module:1101
7   0.1040  12628192    node_build_content( )   ../node.module:1006
8   0.1041  12648832    node_prepare( ) ../node.module:1085
9   0.1041  12649112    check_markup( ) ../node.module:1041
10  0.1047  12671980    module_invoke( )    ../filter.module:457
11  0.1047  12693240    call_user_func_array ( )    ../module.inc:462
12  0.1047  12693900    php_filter( )   ../module.inc:0
13  0.1048  12694164    drupal_eval( )  ../php.module:82
14  0.1059  12883728    eval( ''?>

getEmail() is a function in a class that is in my custom module. I can call it from the page.tpl.php just fine, so why can't I call it from a page that I have edited in the Admin GUI?

EDIT:

Adding Code from Module:

//wrapperFunction() is calling the class and setting the values
// this is just a getter/setter class w/ 1 function that formats a phone number, nothing special
$custom = new CustomObj(); 
$custom->setEmail('blah@blah,com');

return $custom;

page.tpl.php

// calls the wrapper function and returns the object
$custom_obj = wrapperFunction();
echo $custom_obj->getEmail(); // this prints the email just fine

Edit page through the Admin GUI (Allows PHP tags) Adding this code to the page

<?php echo $custom_obj->getEmail(); ?> // throws the error

Sorry this is my first Drupal Module so any insight would be great as I'm also new to using Drupal, sigh...

Answer 1

You should try putting the snippet

// calls the wrapper function and returns the object
$custom_obj = wrapperFunction();
echo $custom_obj->getEmail(); // this prints the email just fine

in node.tpl.php instead of page.tpl.php. node.tpl.php is executed before page.tpl.php so your error arises as $custom_obj does not exist as it is only created in page.tpl.php (by calling the wrapperFunction() which does new).

[I don't know what you are trying to achieve exactly. Its generally not a good idea to have any business logic in your tpl files which you seem to have here...]

Answer 2

Well to solve my problem I moved all the logic to the module and the fields I wanted to change on the fly I set to session. so in the page.tpl.php page I checked if the SESSION value was set, if it was use it else use a default value. By using SESSION I was able to pass all the desired values to any page regardless of where the page was made (GUI or Hard coded).