An elegant way to send "generic" email messages

Hello all Most web apps need to send confirmation emails, or welcome emails, or other forms of generic email messages. By generic I mean a message that is only customised by a few variables, i.e. name and email address and maybe a specific link or ID. Now most examples of php I have ever seen always seem to build those messages in the code. This is not really an acceptable solution as it is usually not the developer who writes the text of the message but the same people who work on the wording of the content of the site, or maybe the designer i.e. people you don't want to allow free access to your php code. Now with html documents and templates this is easy, as you can use bits of php code <?php echo $thisvariable ?> in your templates and call them through include, or use one of the simple templating schemes. These don't work with email as I don't want the result to go to the default output but to a variable that will be the message body. What I want is the equivalent of <<<Eof but with an external file. So what's left? 1. the manual parse/replace approach (i.e. read the file, replace every ##variable## by $variable and plug the result in $message) 2. put the email message in a php routine after all, and have to edit it every single time someone decides that "greetings" is better than "hello" after all. Is there not a more elegant way? I cannot help but think I'm overlooking something Joelle Nebbe _______________________________________________________________________ Any opinions expressed in the email are those of the individual and not necessarily the company. This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and solely for the use of the intended recipient. If you are not the intended recipient or the person responsible for delivering to the intended recipient, be advised that you have received this email in error and that any use is strictly prohibited. If you have received this email in error please notify the IT manager by telephone on 0113 243 2701 _______________________________________________________________________