method for creating PHP templates (ie html with variables)?

Question

I'm designing my html emails, these are to be a block of html containing variables that i can store in a $template variable.

My problem comes with the storing in the variable part. putting all my html into php makes it a pain in the bum to work with.

for example, the below code is fine for a simple email but once i start getting nested tables etc its going to get really confusing...

$template.= 'Welcome ' . $username . '<br /><br /><br />';
$template.= 'Thank-you for creating an account <br /><br />';
$template.= 'Please confirm your account by click the link below! <br /><br />';
$template.= '<a href="' . $sitepath . '?email=' . $email . '&conf_key=' . $key . '" style="color: #03110A;"><font size="5" font-family="Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif" color="#03110A">' . $key . '</font></a>';
$template.='</body></html>';

is there a way i can still store the html in a $var but not have to write it like this?

grossvogel · Accepted Answer · 2010-05-25 15:00:24Z

13

For emails, I'm a big fan of file-based templates and a really basic template parser. One advantages of this is that clients and domain experts can read and even edit the text. The other is that you're not relying on variable scope, like with heredoc. I do something like this:

Text file with email template:

Welcome, [Username]

Thank you for creating an account.
Please ... etc.

PHP client code:

$templateData = array ('Username'=>$username...); // get this from a db or something in practice
$emailBody = file_get_contents ($templateFilePath);// read in the template file from above
foreach ($templateData as $key => $value){
  $emailBody = str_replace ("[$key]", $value, $emailBody);
}

Of course, you'll be in trouble if your email needs to contain the text [Username], but you can come up with your own pseudocode convention. For html or more complicated emails with things like loops and conditions, you could extend this idea, but it's easier and safer to use a template engine. I like PHPTAL, but it refuses to do plain text.

EDIT: For emails, you probably want a plain text version as well as an HTML version. Using functions or methods to load the files and do the substitution makes adding the second format pretty painless, though.

edited May 25, 2010 at 15:00

answered May 25, 2010 at 14:54

grossvogel

6,7921 gold badge28 silver badges37 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

2 Comments

Haroldo Over a year ago

i like this homemade approach, should make for very readable templates i imagine.

Marcus Adams Over a year ago

Doesn't even have to be a file. You can store them in the DB. Either way, you can give the "client" a simple UI to edit them.

Marcus Adams · Accepted Answer · 2010-05-25 14:50:15Z

11

Have you tried using the heredoc syntax?

$template = <<<TEMPLATE
Welcome $username <br/><br/>
...
</body></html>
TEMPLATE;

edited May 25, 2010 at 14:50

answered May 25, 2010 at 14:45

Marcus Adams

54k9 gold badges98 silver badges145 bronze badges

2 Comments

Haroldo Over a year ago

ooh what's that? i'll look it up!

yello Over a year ago

PHP heredoc is great! If you use it to create HTML templates that you want copy and paste, and that are easy to read I suggest to output the string this way: echo "<pre>".htmlentities($template)."</pre>";

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 12:25:39Z

7

<?php ob_start(); ?>
Welcome <?= $username ?><br /><br /><br />
Thank-you for creating an account <br /><br />
Please confirm your account by click the link below! <br /><br />
<a href="<?= $sitepath ?>?email=<?= $email ?>&conf_key=<?= $key ?>" style="color: #03110A;"><font size="5" font-family="Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif" color="#03110A"><?= $key ?></font></a>
</body></html>
<?php

$template = ob_get_content();

// to output the data:
ob_end_flush();
// or
echo $template;
// or whatever you want to do else with `$template`

See http://www.php.net/manual/en/ref.outcontrol.php for more information on this matter

Update: (Credits to Ycros)

template_file.php:

<html><head></head><body>
Welcome <?= $username ?><br /><br /><br />
Thank-you for creating an account <br /><br />
Please confirm your account by click the link below! <br /><br />
<a href="<?= $sitepath ?>?email=<?= $email ?>&conf_key=<?= $key ?>" style="color: #03110A;"><font size="5" font-family="Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif" color="#03110A"><?= $key ?></font></a>
</body></html>

some_library_file.php

<?php
function load_template_to_string($file_name) {
  ob_start();
  include $file_name;
  return ob_get_content();
}

in the script where you want to load this template:

$template = load_template_to_string('template_file.php');

edited May 23, 2017 at 12:25

CommunityBot

11 silver badge

answered May 25, 2010 at 14:59

jigfox

18.2k3 gold badges62 silver badges74 bronze badges

2 Comments

Ycros Over a year ago

With this method, you can also put the template in a separate file. And it'd be a good idea to write a function to do the ob_start/ob_get_content/include if you decide to do it that way.

Jos Over a year ago

It is ob_get_content**s**() ;)

Jonathan Fingland · Accepted Answer · 2010-05-25 14:47:51Z

2

you can use double quote, Heredoc, or Newdoc.

for example (double quoted strings):

$template.= "Welcome $username <br /><br /><br />
Thank-you for creating an account <br /><br />
Please confirm your account by click the link below! <br /><br />
<a href='${sitepath}?email=${email}&conf_key='$key' style="color: #03110A;"><font size='5' font-family="Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif" color='#03110A'>${key}</font></a>
</body></html>";

or (Heredoc)

$template = <<<EOL
Welcome $username <br /><br /><br />
Thank-you for creating an account <br /><br />
Please confirm your account by click the link below! <br /><br />
<a href='${sitepath}?email=${email}&conf_key='$key' style="color: #03110A;"><font size="5" font-family="Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif" color="#03110A">${key}</font></a>
</body></html>
EOL;

See http://php.net/manual/en/language.types.string.php For different methods of handling variables in strings.

answered May 25, 2010 at 14:47

Jonathan Fingland

57.3k11 gold badges89 silver badges79 bronze badges

1 Comment

Haroldo Over a year ago

this works perfectly, and seeing as it will only be me using the templates, im pretty happy with heredoc

ZZ Coder · Accepted Answer · 2010-05-25 15:24:46Z

0

Don't tie your template to PHP. You may need to support the same template on other platforms in the future.

What we do is that we use SSI (Server Side Include) echo command to inject variables into HTML. If you don't have SSI support, you can simply replace the vars in PHP with regular expressions. The template looks like this,

<h1>Welcome <!--#echo var="USERNAME" -->,</h1>

Where USERNAME is the variable name. This looks more verbose than simply putting PHP vars in the template but you will benefit in long run.

answered May 25, 2010 at 15:24

ZZ Coder

75.7k30 gold badges139 silver badges169 bronze badges

Comments

mexique1 · Accepted Answer · 2010-05-25 16:01:43Z

0

If you are not against using a framework piece for this, go for Zend_View.

With Zend_View you can write your templates in pure PHP, and it also comes with lots of helpers to generate HTML output.

You could also use the include() and extract() functions to create your own template mechanism :

$model = array('foo' => 'bar', 'baz' => array('bat', 'qux'));
extract($model);
include('template.php');

<p><?php echo $foo ?></p>
<ul>
    <?php foreach ($baz as $item) : ?>
    <li><?php echo $item ?></li>
    <?php endforeach; ?>
</ul>

answered May 25, 2010 at 16:01

mexique1

1,69311 silver badges18 bronze badges

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

method for creating PHP templates (ie html with variables)?

6 Answers 6

2 Comments

2 Comments

2 Comments

1 Comment

Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Linked

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

6 Answers 6

2 Comments

2 Comments

2 Comments

1 Comment

Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Linked

Related