Is there any way to return HTML in a PHP function? (without building the return value as a string)
PhpStringTemplatingPhp Problem Overview
I have a PHP function that I'm using to output a standard block of HTML. It currently looks like this:
<?php function TestBlockHTML ($replStr) { ?>
<html>
<body><h1> <?php echo ($replStr) ?> </h1>
</html>
<?php } ?>
I want to return (rather than echo) the HTML inside the function. Is there any way to do this without building up the HTML (above) in a string?
Php Solutions
Solution 1 - Php
You can use a heredoc, which supports variable interpolation, making it look fairly neat:
function TestBlockHTML ($replStr) {
return <<<HTML
<html>
<body><h1>{$replStr}</h1>
</body>
</html>
HTML;
}
Pay close attention to the warning in the manual though - the closing line must not contain any whitespace, so can't be indented.
Solution 2 - Php
Yes, there is: you can capture the echoed text using ob_start:
<?php function TestBlockHTML($replStr) {
ob_start(); ?>
<html>
<body><h1><?php echo($replStr) ?></h1>
</html>
<?php
return ob_get_clean();
} ?>
Solution 3 - Php
This may be a sketchy solution, and I'd appreciate anybody pointing out whether this is a bad idea, since it's not a standard use of functions. I've had some success getting HTML out of a PHP function without building the return value as a string with the following:
function noStrings() {
echo ''?>
<div>[Whatever HTML you want]</div>
<?php;
}
The just 'call' the function:
noStrings();
And it will output:
<div>[Whatever HTML you want]</div>
Using this method, you can also define PHP variables within the function and echo them out inside the HTML.
Solution 4 - Php
Create a template file and use a template engine to read/update the file. It will increase your code's maintainability in the future as well as separate display from logic.
An example using Smarty:
Template File
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html>
<head><title>{$title}</title></head>
<body>{$string}</body>
</html>
Code
function TestBlockHTML(){
$smarty = new Smarty();
$smarty->assign('title', 'My Title');
$smarty->assign('string', $replStr);
return $smarty->render('template.tpl');
}
Solution 5 - Php
Another way to do is is to use file_get_contents() and have a template HTML page
TEMPLATE PAGE
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html>
<head><title>$title</title></head>
<body>$content</body>
</html>
PHP Function
function YOURFUNCTIONNAME($url){
$html_string = file_get_contents($url);
return $html_string;
}
Solution 6 - Php
If you don't want to have to rely on a third party tool you can use this technique:
function TestBlockHTML($replStr){
$template =
'<html>
<body>
<h1>$str</h1>
</body>
</html>';
return strtr($template, array( '$str' => $replStr));
}
Solution 7 - Php
Or you can just use this:
<?
function TestHtml() {
# PUT HERE YOU PHP CODE
?>
<!-- HTML HERE -->
<? } ?>
to get content from this function , use this :
<?= file_get_contents(TestHtml()); ?>
That's it :)
Solution 8 - Php
Template File
<h1>{title}</h1>
<div>{username}</div>
PHP
if (($text = file_get_contents("file.html")) === false) {
$text = "";
}
$text = str_replace("{title}", "Title Here", $text);
$text = str_replace("{username}", "Username Here", $text);
then you can echo $text as string