Question

I want to be able to put PHP into the database and run it. I have to do this because I store page layouts in the database and each our different for each other, however in some cases I want to use dynamic content for some of the pages.

Assume $query_from_db is the string returned from the database. PHP should only eval() the code in between <?php and ?>

$query_from_db  = '<div>
<?php

//php to run
function dosomething() {
     //bleh
}

?>
</div>
';


php echo eval($query_from_db);

How can I do this? I’m aware this is not recommended.

Answer 1

I’m not arguing about the sense or nonsense of this approach. To some extend, this is a valid question.

See the documentation:

To mix HTML output and PHP code you can use a closing PHP tag to leave PHP mode.

So you have to do:

eval('?> ' .  $query_from_db . ' <?php ');

DEMO

Also note that eval is outputting directly to the browser. It does not return a value. Have a look at Output Control Functions for buffering.