Question

Why PHP preg_replace {include ‘date.php’} does not return php? How to solve it without eval?

header('Content-Type:text/plain');

$str = "Today is {include 'date.php'}.";

echo preg_replace("/\{include '(.*)\'}/e", 'file_get_contents("$1")', $str);

date.php content:

<?php echo date('jS \of F'); ?>, 2011

Result: Today is <?php echo date('jS \of F'); ?>, 2011.

Expected result: Today is 13th of July.

Answer 1

Here is the solution without \e eval:

$str = "{include 'hello.php'}Today is {include 'date.php'}.";

echo preg_replace_callback("/\{include '(.*?)\'}/", function($m) {
  return include($m[1]);
}, $str);

hello.php

<?php return "Hello!\n"; ?>

date.php

<?php return date('jS \of F'); ?>, 2011

result: Hello! Today is 21st of July.