Learning PHP template sites

Question

So I know there are plenty of engines all ready out there like smarty that will do this for me but I want to build a basic one just for my own learning rather than just jumping on someone else's code for now.

So far I have a set of pages (header.php, footer.php, rightPanel.php, home.php) all of which are loaded by a function.

<?php
require_once(realpath(dirname(__FILE__) . "/../config.php"));

function renderLayoutWithContentFile($contentFile, $variables = array())
{
    $contentFileFullPath = TEMPLATES_PATH . "/" . $contentFile;

    // making sure passed in variables are in scope of the template
    // each key in the $variables array will become a variable
    if (count($variables) > 0) {
        foreach ($variables as $key => $value) {
            if (strlen($key) > 0) {
                ${$key} = $value;
            }
        }
    }

    require_once(TEMPLATES_PATH . "/header.php");

    echo "<div id=\"container\">\n"
       . "\t<div id=\"content\">\n";

    if (file_exists($contentFileFullPath)) {
        require_once($contentFileFullPath);
    } else {
        require_once(TEMPLATES_PATH . "/error.php");
    }

    // close content div
    echo "\t</div>\n";

    require_once(TEMPLATES_PATH . "/rightPanel.php");

    // close container div
    echo "</div>\n";

    require_once(TEMPLATES_PATH . "/footer.php");
}
?>

in index.php

<?php

require_once(realpath(dirname(__FILE__) . "/resources/config.php"));

require_once(LIBRARY_PATH . "/templateFunctions.php");
require_once(LIBRARY_PATH . "/dealBuilderFunctions.php");

$setInIndexDotPhp = "Hey! I was set in the index.php file.";

// Must pass in variables (as an array) to use in template
$variables = array(
    'setInIndexDotPhp' => $setInIndexDotPhp,
);

renderLayoutWithContentFile("home.php", $variables);

?>

so now what if I want to load a different set of content into the template, I have figured I can do this to change the variable in the template page and input some logic to get it to check for a change like below:

<?php

require_once(realpath(dirname(__FILE__) . "/resources/config.php"));

require_once(LIBRARY_PATH . "/templateFunctions.php");
require_once(LIBRARY_PATH . "/dealBuilderFunctions.php");

/*
    Now you can handle all your php logic outside of the template
    file which makes for very clean code!
*/

$setInIndexDotPhp = "Hey! I was set in the index.php file.";

// Must pass in variables (as an array) to use in template
$variables = array(
    'setInIndexDotPhp' => $setInIndexDotPhp,
);

if ($page == "") {
    $page = "home";
} 
else {
    $page=$page;
}
renderLayoutWithContentFile("$page.php", $variables);

?>

URL to get to new page

http://siteurl.com/index.php?page=test

but I keep getting an error Notice: Undefined variable: page in /www/sites/perthdeals/wwwroot/index.php on line 20, how can I get this to work?

I thought the above should just change any variable $page in index.php but if I set it in the page like the error asks I just get the page I defined inside the code, not the one passed in URL, so how should it work?

Alternatively if there are any modern tutorials that will help me understand this I would appreciate it, Thanks.

UPDATE - The Undefined variable: page in /www/sites/perthdeals/wwwroot/index.php on line 20 was a red herring, I was trying to call the variable from the URL wrong, answer marked below, thanks.

update added, the error wasn't the actual problem, while the proposed duplicate solution got rid of the error it did not fix the actual issue, answer marked below. — CKelly-Cook, Apr 08 '15 at 07:28

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 08 '15 at 07:18

0

parameters from the URL you can get through $_GET, in your case

if ($_GET["page"] == "") {
    $page = "home";
} 
else {
    $page=$_GET["page"];
}

answered Apr 08 '15 at 07:18

zdeniiik

222
3
14

1

Thanks, I was still showing the error even though it was working when I set page in the URL so I changed the code to below based on the other article ` if (isset($_GET["page"])) { $page=$_GET["page"]; } else { $page = "home"; }` – CKelly-Cook Apr 08 '15 at 07:34

Learning PHP template sites

1 Answers1