Question

i was programming a mail templatingsystem. The user should be able to use markers in there, they will be replaced by the actual data. The problem ist, my function to replace the markers works just fine, but i need to do a recursiv call of that function, that will only run once, and this is what i came up with:

public function replace_placeholders($content, $recipient, $settings, $interface, $recommendation, $format, $recursion = false) {
    $content = $this->replace_ph('briefanrede'  , $recipient['id']          , $content);
    $content = $this->replace_ph('anrede'       , $recipient['title']       , $content);
    $content = $this->replace_ph('email'        , $recipient['email']       , $content);
    $content = $this->replace_ph('kundennummer' , $recipient['kdnumber']    , $content);
    $content = $this->replace_ph('briefanrede'  , $recipient['briefanrede'] , $content);

    if($recipient['title'] == $settings['anrede_w'] || $recipient['title'] == $settings['anrede_m']) {
        $content = $this->replace_ph('vorname'  , $recipient['forename']    , $content);
        $content = $this->replace_ph('nachname' , $recipient['surename']    , $content);
    } else {
        $content = $this->replace_ph('vorname'  , ""    , $content, true);
        $content = $this->replace_ph('nachname' , ""    , $content, true);
    }

    $content = $this->replace_salutation($recipient, $settings, $content);

    //Recommendation    
    if($this->need_replacement($content, 'weiterempfehlung') === false && $recursion === false) {
        if($recommendation['own_page'] == 1) {
            $baseurl = $recommendation['location'];
        }  else {
            $baseurl = $recommendation['link'];
        }
        $pattern = ($format == "html") ? '<a href="%s">%s</a>' : '%s';
        $url = $this->replace_placeholders($baseurl, $recipient, $settings, $interface, $recommendation, true);
        $content = $this->replace_ph('weiterempfehlung' , (($format == "html") ? sprintf($pattern, $url, $settings['text_weiterempfehlung']): sprinf($pattern, $url)), $content);

    }

    return $content;
}

The recursiv call in this line

$url = $this->replace_placeholders($baseurl, $recipient, $settings, $interface, $recommendation, true);

is causing a 500 internal server error. I dont know why, because i think that i limited the recursion to run once. Can you help me out?

Sorry for my bad english i try hard to write clear sentences.

//EDIT:

Apache log:

[Wed May 30 15:31:56 2012] [warn] [client xx.xxx.xx.xxx] (104)Connection reset by peer: mod_fcgid: error reading data from FastCGI server
[Wed May 30 15:31:56 2012] [warn] [client xx.xxx.xx.xxx] (104)Connection reset by peer: mod_fcgid: ap_pass_brigade failed in handle_request_ipc function
[Wed May 30 15:31:56 2012] [error] [client xx.xxx.xx.xxx] File does not exist: /var/www/web80/html/web80-newsletter/favicon.ico
[Wed May 30 15:31:58 2012] [error] mod_fcgid: process /var/www/php-fcgi/web80.php53/php-fcgi(21975) exit(communication error), get unexpected signal 11 

the php errorlog is empty.

Answer 1

It would seem you miss one argument in your recursive call, making the $recursive = false continue being false all the time, which in turn makes your if statement

if($this->need_replacement($content, 'weiterempfehlung') === false && $recursion === false)

always return true.
Try adding one last variable to your recursive call instead and you should be able to properly execute your script, ie:

$url = $this->replace_placeholders($baseurl, $recipient, $settings, $interface, 
$recommendation, true, true);
                     ^ added one true

What i think you want to add instead of the first true is $format.