My first Template Class

[section31]

I just finished making a really light and simple template class that supports blocks and regular placeholder substitutions. I decided not to use the existing ones out there because I found them to be extremely bloated, not to mention I don't like using stuff that I don't understand completely. It would've taken me days to go through smarty or any other template engines out there and find out how they work (thousands of lines across several files :bemused: )

Anyway, I'm a beginner coder and would like some criticism. You can find all of the below files are also located here (http://section31.us/scripts/Template%20Class/) on my server.

Ok, this is the class. Click here (http://section31.us/scripts/Template%20Class/Template.phps) to see the source on my server.

<?

class Template
{
var $template;
var $html;
var $replacements = array();
var $blocks = array();
var $newblocks = array();

function Template($template)
{
$this->template = $template;
$this->html = file_get_contents($this->template); // Reads the template into a string.
preg_match_all('#<!-- BEGIN (.*) -->(.*)<!-- END \1 -->#s', $this->html, $matches); // Parses through template and finds Blocks, if any.
for ($i=0;$i<count($matches[1]);$i++) {
$this->blocks[ $matches[1][$i] ] = $matches[2][$i]; // Puts blocks into its own array in the form of $this->blocks['block'] = 'Contents'
$this->newblocks[ $matches[1][$i] ] = '';
}
//print_r($this->blocks);
$this->html = preg_replace('#<!-- BEGIN (.*?) -->(.*?)<!-- END \1 -->#s', '{\1}', $this->html); // Strips Blocks from the string and replaces it with a regular template Variable in the form of {block}.
}

function setReplace($variable, $replace = null)
{
if (is_array($variable)) {
foreach ($variable as $key => $var) {
$this->replacements[$key] = $var;
}
}
else {
$this->replacements[$variable] = $replace;
}
}

function setBlock($replaceVars, $block) // Takes an array and uses the keys as the template variables and the values for the replacement.
{
if ( isset($this->blocks[ $block ]) ) {
$this->newblocks[$block] .= str_replace( explode( ',', ('{' . implode('},{', array_keys($replaceVars)) . '}') ) , $replaceVars, $this->blocks[ $block ] );
}
}


function publish()
{
foreach (array_keys($this->blocks) as $block) {
$this->html = str_replace ('{' . $block . '}', $this->newblocks[$block], $this->html);
}

foreach ($this->replacements as $key => $value) {
$this->html = str_replace ('{' . $key . '}', $value, $this->html);
}

echo $this->html;
}
}

?>



This is an example template. Click here (http://section31.us/scripts/Template%20Class/example.tpl) to see the source on my server.

<table>
<tr>
<th>{NAMEHEAD}</th><th>{AGEHEAD}</th><th>{SEXHEAD}</th>
</tr>
<!-- BEGIN row -->
<tr>
<td>{name}</td>
<td>{age}</td>
<td>{sex}</td>
</tr>
<!-- END row -->
</table>


This is an example of the class being used along with the template above. Click here (http://section31.us/scripts/Template%20Class/test.phps) to see the source on my server.

<?
error_reporting (E_ALL);
// Usage:
//
// Template Placeholders should be in the form of {[0-9A-Za-z_-]+}
// Template Blocks should be in the form of (SEE BELOW)
// <!-- BEGIN [0-9A-Za-z_-]+ -->
// ... block content ...
// <!-- END [0-9A-Za-z_-]+ -->

$text = array(
'AGEHEAD' => 'Age',
'SEXHEAD' => "Sex",
);

$people[] = array(
'name' => "Dave",
'age' => "22",
'sex' => 'Male');

$people[] = array(
'name' => "Jennifer",
'age' => "21",
'sex' => 'Female');

$people[] = array(
'name' => "Gina",
'age' => "26",
'sex' => 'Female');


require_once ("Template.php");
$page = new Template ('example.tpl');


//works with both singe value pair replacement or Array (key, value) replacement.
$page->setReplace('NAMEHEAD', 'Name'); // Single Replacement.
$page->setReplace($text); // Multiple Replacements, sending an Array using Keys as Template Vars and Values as replacements.

// Replacing Block with an Array once again using Keys as Template Vars and Values as replacements.
foreach ($people as $person) {
$page->setBlock($person, 'row');
}

$page->publish();
?>


AND NOW FOR THE END RESULT
CLICK HERE (http://section31.us/scripts/Template%20Class/example.php)

[section31]

Does anyone know where I can get some criticism on this. Any other forums or something. I would really like some input on this as i'm still beginner.

[RossC0]

Give people time and they will critise! :evilgrin:

The code seems good in the example provided...

OK - so you've said that you found other templating engines bloated. How will you be using your template class?

Bearing in mind that php itself can be described as a templating engine - how is your abstraction (templating system) benefitial?

I find templating engines really come into their own when you include caching - Ideally your template engine should be able determine if it actually needs to process your code (which may include queries etc.. and has a cost) or output cached html code.

[section31]

Its going to be used on a small site with very little traffic so no caching feature was necessary. . I'll think about adding a caching feature in the future, thanks.