Re: variable placeholders in a text file

Please excuse the top post, but this may be helpful: http://stut.net/2008/10/28/snippet-simple-templates-with-php/ -Stuart -- Sent from my leaf blower On 31 Dec 2012, at 19:59, Ashley Sheridan <ash@ashleysheridan.co.uk> wrote: > On Mon, 2012-12-31 at 13:39 -0600, Nelson Green wrote: > >> Hello, >> >> I have created a simple function that prints a personalized greeting by reading >> the greeting contents from a file. I pass the user's name to the function, >> and the function reads the file contents into a string variable. I am then >> using str_replace to replace the word USER in the string with the user's >> name that was passed to the function. Then the function correctly prints >> the personalized greeting as I wish. >> >> My question is, is there another way to do something similar, such as >> embedding a variable name directly into the text file? In other words, >> instead of my text file reading: >> >> Hello USER ... >> >> Can I do something like this: >> >> Hello $user_name ... >> >> and then write my function to replace $user_name with the passed >> parameter prior to printing? >> >> The reason I ask is because I am going to want to do three substitutions, >> and I'd rather not do three str_replace calls if I don't have to. Plus the >> latter seems to be a more robust way of making the changes. >> >> Thanks, and apologies if this has been asked before and I missed it. I'm >> just not sure how to phrase this for a search engine. >> >> Nelson > > > You could use an existing templating solution, like Smarty, although for > what you want to do it might be overkill. A few str_replace() calls > shouldn't produce too much overhead, but it depends on the size of the > text string in question. If it's just a couple of paragraphs of text, no > problem, something closer to a whole chapter of a book will obviously be > more expensive. > > You could try eval() on the block of text, but if you do, be really > careful about what text you're using. I wouldn't recommend this if > you're using any text supplied by a user. As a last option, you could > have the text stored as separate parts which you join together in one > string later. This might be less expensive in terms of processing power > required, but it also makes maintenance more of a hassle later. > > > Thanks, > Ash > http://www.ashleysheridan.co.uk > >