Question

Imagine we have 2 files, one called 1.php with the following code:

<?php
    $hello = "Hello from 1";
?>

and 2.php with the following code:

<?php
    function LoadPage( $page )
    {
        $f = fopen( $page, 'r+' );  
        $content = fread( $f, filesize($page) );
        fclose( $f );
        return $content;
    }

    function GetEvalContent( $content )
    {
        $var = "";
        ob_start();
        eval( "?>" . $content . "<?" );
        $var = ob_get_contents();
        ob_end_clean();
        return $var;
    }

    $hello = "hello from 2";

    echo $hello . '<br/>';

    $content = LoadPage( '1.php' );
    GetEvalContent( $content );

    echo $hello;
?>

So what the 2.php does is load the content of 1.php and evaluate the php code inside it. Now what I want to do is during the evaluation of 1.php, variable $hello changes to “hello from 1”. However if you execute 2.php you always get:

"hello from 2"
"hello from 2"

instead of getting

"hello from 2"
"hello from 1"

Has anyone encountered this problem before and if so, how would you fix it?

Answer 1

There is a much easier way to do this. Use PHP’s include.

1.php

<?php
   $hello = "Hello from 1";
?>

2.php

<?php
   $hello = "hello from 2";
   echo $hello;
   include '1.php';
   echo $hello;
?>

UPDATE (not tested):

function includeFile($file){
  global $hello;  // Use the global variable $hello
                  // this will make the include sets $hello correctly
  ob_start();
  include $file;  // Remember any variables set here will be in this scope,
                  // not the global scope (unless you add them to the global line above)
  $var = ob_get_contents();  // This will contain anything echoed to the screen
                             // from the included file
  ob_end_clean();
  return $var;
}

$hello = "hello from 2";
echo $hello;
$file = '1.php';
$output = includeFile($file);
echo $hello;
echo $output;