It reminds so much of Zip Drives. Even though they were much bigger than floppy disks… it’s like.. sorry Zip Drives but we just don’t need you anymore. We have flash drives now =)

my_tpl.php:
<?
function my_foreach($dat,$tpl)
         {$if=’my_if’;
          $htm=”;
          foreach ($dat as $v)
                  {extract($v);
                   $htm.=eval(‘return ”‘.$tpl.’”;’);
                  }
          return $htm;
         }

function my_if($case,$yes,$no)
         {return $case?$yes:$no;
         }

function my_tpl($dat,$tpl)
         {$my_tpl=’my_tpl’;
          $import=’my_import’;
          $foreach=’my_foreach’;
          $if=’my_if’;
          extract($dat);
          $tpl=file_get_contents($tpl);
          $htm=eval(‘return ”‘.$tpl.’”;’);
          return $htm;
         }
?>

test.tpl:
{$company} Employee:<br>
<br>
{$foreach($info,<<<’FUN’
Info:{$if(“{$name}”==’jack’,”Name:{$name}Tel:{$tel}”,’private’)}<br>
FUN
)}
<br>
{$foreach($info,<<<’FUN’
Name:{$name}Tel:{$tel}<br>
FUN
)}
<br>
"Member":{$if(“{$flag}”==’1′,’yes’,$if(“{$flag}”==’0′,’no’,”))}<br>
<br>
{$my_tpl($dat,’footer.tpl’)}

footer.tpl:
Bye, {$company}

test.php:
<?
require_once ’my_tpl.php’;

$the_name=’Company A’;
$d['company']=$the_name;
$d['info'][0]=array(‘name’=>’kexianbin’,'tel’=>’7894′);
$d['info'][1]=array(‘name’=>’jack’,'tel’=>’7411′);
$d['flag']=’1′;

echo my_tpl($d,’test.tpl’);
?>

my_tpl.php:

test.tpl:
{$company} Employee:

{$foreach($info,
FUN
)}

{$foreach($info,
FUN
)}

"Member":{$if(“{$flag}”==’1′,’yes’,$if(“{$flag}”==’0′,’no’,”))}

{$my_tpl($dat,’footer.tpl’)}

footer.tpl:
Bye, {$company}

test.php:
‘kexianbin’,'tel’=>’7894′);
$d['info'][1]=array(‘name’=>’jack’,'tel’=>’7411′);
$d['flag']=’1′;

echo my_tpl($d,’test.tpl’);
?>

However it is a point worth stating again and again, because some people never learn better. So I congratulate the author for this article .

K.I.S.S.

If you don’t want to write the templating engine yourself (easily doable in 20 lines of code) use Savant. That is non compiling template engine for PHP using PHP as templating language. It is even somewhat compatible with Smarty on API level. I have used mixture of both (Smarty as legacy, Savant for new things) on projects.

What if we are talking about a program that will be publicly downloadable? For example a forum. I download a forum that uses native PHP templating. I then go to a templates site, and download a nice template, and install it to my forum. But little do I know, since it is a PHP template, that the author has snuck some extra PHP in:

if ($_POST['do_exploit'] == 1)
{
SomeFunctionThatDoesBadThings();
}

Oh? Well now if that template author sees my site uses his template, he can type the url “mysite.com?do_exploit=1″ and all of a sudden my site crashes, or gives him my database password or something else….

Why? Because my template gives TOO much power. The idea making a simplified template engine is not only to make it easier and friendlier to create a template, but also to only give template authors the power they need — or are allowed to have.

I will say, that a good portion of the time, using PHP for templating a private site is a good way to go, but if your script is going to be publicly available, there is no other choice but a template engine.