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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-25T17:16:04+00:00

This is more of a style question. I have a template file header.php in

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This is more of a style question. I have a template file header.php in which I define a PrintHeader() function.

Callers of this function can specify, via global variables, the title of the page and any Javascript scripts to include when printing the header (because surely not every page will have the same title or want to include the same scripts). I chose to use global variables rather than function arguments because the latter would require the interface to change when adding new arguments.

Is this considered “good” style, and is there a “better” way to do what I’m trying to do?

header.php (simplified)

<?php
function PrintHeader()
{
  global $pageTitle, $scripts; // Set by the caller of this function

  echo <<<HEADER
<html>
 <head>
  <title>$pageTitle</title>

HEADER;

  if( !empty($scripts) )
  {
    foreach($scripts as $script)
    {
      echo "  <script type=\"text/javascript\" src=\"$script.js\"></script>\n";
    }
  }

  echo " </head>\n";
}
?>

index.php (simplified)

<?php
  $pageTitle = 'Welcome';
  $scripts = array('script1', 'script2');
  require('header.php');
  PrintHeader();

  // Print the rest of the page
?>
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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    is there a “better” way to do what I’m trying to do?

    sure.
    I see no point in defining and calling a function at all. as well as in using heredoc.

    header.php (dramatically simplified):

    <html>
 <head>
  <title><?=$pageTitle?></title>

<? if( !empty($scripts) ): ?>
  <?  foreach($scripts as $script): ?>
<script type="text/javascript" src="<?=$script?>.js"></script>
  <? endforeach ?>
<? endif ?>
  </head>

    index.php:

    <?php
  $pageTitle = 'Welcome';
  $scripts = array('script1', 'script2');
  require('header.php');
?>

    but still it’s not the best way, as it seems you’re not using a template where it most valuable – to output page contents itself.

    So, I’d make it in three parts:

    links.php (simplified):

    <?
//include our settings, connect to database etc.
include dirname($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']).'/cfg/settings.php';
//getting required data
$DATA = getdata("SELECT * FROM links");
$pagetitle = "Links to friend sites";
//etc
//and then call a template:
$tpl = "links.tpl.php";
include "main.tpl.php";
?>

    where main.tpl.php is your main site template, including common parts, like header, footer, menu etc:

    <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<title>My site. <?=$pagetitle?></title>
</head>
<body>
<div id="page">
<? include $tpl ?>
</div>
</body>
</html>

    and finally links.tpl.php is the actual page template:

    <h2><?=$pagetitle?></h2>
<ul>
<? foreach($DATA as $row): ?>
<li><a href="<?=$row['link']?>" target="_blank"><?=$row['name']?></a></li>
<? endforeach ?>
<ul>

    notice native HTML syntax, which is highlighted, readable and centralized in one place instead of being split between numerous functions and files

    The point is in having separate template for the every PHP page as well as main site template for them all. With such setup you’ll get a lot of advantages such as custom error pages, multiple representations of the same data (say, HTML, JSON or XML) by switching only templates without changing the code and many more

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