Question

So I had a question on general organization of code for the Zend framework with regard to the layout.

My layout is basically this:

(LAYOUT.PHTML)

<div id='header'>
<?= $this->Layout()->header ?>
</div>

<div id='main'>
<?= $this->Layout()->main ?>
</div>

<div id='footer'>
<?= $this->Layout()->footer ?>
</div>

and so on and so forth. Now, in order to keep my code in my header separate from the code of my main and the code of my footer, I’ve created a folder for my view that holds header.phtml, main.phtml, footer.phtml. I then use this code to assign the content of header.phtml into $this->layout()->header:

(INDEX.PHTML)

$this->Layout()->header = file_get_contents('index/header.phtml');
$this->Layout()->main = file_get_contents('index/main.phtml');
$this->Layout()->footer = file_get_contents('index/footer.phtml');

That was working great, but I’ve hit a point where I don’t want main to be static HTML anymore. I would like to be able to insert some values with PHP. So in my Controller in indexAction, I want to be able to load from my database and put values into index/main.phtml. Is there a way to do this without restructuring my site?

If not is there a way to do it so that I can have:

1. The ability to put code into different sections of my layout, such as Layout()->header, Layout->footer.

2. Separate these pieces into different files, so that they’re easy to find and organize, like my index/footer.phtml, index/main.phtml etc.

3. Not have to put that code into quotes unnecessarily to turn it into a string to pass it to Layout()->header etc.

Thank you guys so much for your help.

-Ethan

Answer 1

Here is an idea:

• Assign layout()->header the filename instead of the contents.
• Put your code in this file
• In your layout file, include() or require() the layout->header().

Since your layout headers/footers are now parsed, you can use them just like a view.