Question

Im new to php and I have a templating system in which I orignally used heredoc syntax but have since decided to get rid of it for a number of reasons.

I have something that looks like this:

    public function display_admin() {

    return <<<ADMIN_FORM

    <form action="{$_SERVER['PHP_SELF']}" enctype="multipart/form-data" method="post">
      <label for="title">Title:</label><br />
      <input name="title" id="title" type="text" maxlength="220" />
      <div class="clear"></div>
      <label for="bodytext">Body Text:</label><br />
      <textarea name="bodytext" id="bodytext"></textarea>
      <input type="submit" value="Create This Entry!" />
    </form>

    ADMIN_FORM; }

And I call it on a page using this:

$obj = new myCMS();
echo $obj->display_admin();

How can I replace the heredoc syntax? Is there another efficient method for inserting large blocks of HTML into a PHP function? I know there must be a simple solution, here but every time I google it, I get answers that seem better suited for inserting single lines of HTML, not whole blocks.

Answer 1

First of all, there are not much reasons for inserting large blocks of HTML into a PHP function.
calling $obj->display_admin(); makes not much sense.
while

$data = array('bodytext' => $text);
$obj->set_data($data);
$obj->set_template('admin_form')
$obj->display();

makes.

Next, heredoc is absolutely not a templating solution.
While PHP itself is.

So, make a file admin_form.tpl.php

<form action="" enctype="multipart/form-data" method="post">
  <label for="title">Title:</label><br />
  <input name="title" id="title" type="text" maxlength="220" />
  <div class="clear"></div>
  <label for="bodytext">Body Text:</label><br />
  <textarea name="bodytext" id="bodytext"><?=$data['bodytext']?></textarea>
<? if ($data['id']): ?>
  <input name="id" id="id" type="hidden" value="<?=$data['id']?>" />
<? endif ?>
  <input type="submit" value="Create This Entry!" />
</form>

and just include it where it fits – most likely in your templating class.