Php – Super Basic Templating System

phptemplates

I'd like to be able to replace things in a file with a regular expression using the following scheme:

I have an array:

$data = array(
  'title' => 'My Cool Title',
  'content' => ''
)

I also have a template (for clarity's sake, we'll assume the below is assigned to a variable $template)

<html>
<title><% title %></title>
<body><% content %></body>
</html>

I'd like to be able to use one regular expression to do the whole thing, so it can be as general as possible; The following is my stab at it (which doesn't work)

$endMarkup = preg_replace('/<% ([a-z]+) %>/',$data["\\1"], $template);

Is there a clean solution for putting associative array data into a template by array index?

Best Solution

With a little work before hand you can do it with a single preg_replace call:

$replacements = array();
foreach ($data as $search => $replacement) {
   $replacements["/<% $search %>/"] = $replacement;
}
$endMarkup = preg_replace(
     array_keys($replacements), 
     array_values($replacements), 
     $template);

Related Solutions

Php – How to implement basic “Long Polling”

It's simpler than I initially thought.. Basically you have a page that does nothing, until the data you want to send is available (say, a new message arrives).

Here is a really basic example, which sends a simple string after 2-10 seconds. 1 in 3 chance of returning an error 404 (to show error handling in the coming Javascript example)

msgsrv.php

<?php
if(rand(1,3) == 1){
    /* Fake an error */
    header("HTTP/1.0 404 Not Found");
    die();
}

/* Send a string after a random number of seconds (2-10) */
sleep(rand(2,10));
echo("Hi! Have a random number: " . rand(1,10));
?>

Note: With a real site, running this on a regular web-server like Apache will quickly tie up all the "worker threads" and leave it unable to respond to other requests.. There are ways around this, but it is recommended to write a "long-poll server" in something like Python's twisted, which does not rely on one thread per request. cometD is an popular one (which is available in several languages), and Tornado is a new framework made specifically for such tasks (it was built for FriendFeed's long-polling code)... but as a simple example, Apache is more than adequate! This script could easily be written in any language (I chose Apache/PHP as they are very common, and I happened to be running them locally)

Then, in Javascript, you request the above file (msg_srv.php), and wait for a response. When you get one, you act upon the data. Then you request the file and wait again, act upon the data (and repeat)

What follows is an example of such a page.. When the page is loaded, it sends the initial request for the msgsrv.php file.. If it succeeds, we append the message to the #messages div, then after 1 second we call the waitForMsg function again, which triggers the wait.

The 1 second setTimeout() is a really basic rate-limiter, it works fine without this, but if msgsrv.php always returns instantly (with a syntax error, for example) - you flood the browser and it can quickly freeze up. This would better be done checking if the file contains a valid JSON response, and/or keeping a running total of requests-per-minute/second, and pausing appropriately.

If the page errors, it appends the error to the #messages div, waits 15 seconds and then tries again (identical to how we wait 1 second after each message)

The nice thing about this approach is it is very resilient. If the clients internet connection dies, it will timeout, then try and reconnect - this is inherent in how long polling works, no complicated error-handling is required

Anyway, the long_poller.htm code, using the jQuery framework:

<html>
<head>
    <title>BargePoller</title>
    <script src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.2.6/jquery.min.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script>

    <style type="text/css" media="screen">
      body{ background:#000;color:#fff;font-size:.9em; }
      .msg{ background:#aaa;padding:.2em; border-bottom:1px #000 solid}
      .old{ background-color:#246499;}
      .new{ background-color:#3B9957;}
    .error{ background-color:#992E36;}
    </style>

    <script type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8">
    function addmsg(type, msg){
        /* Simple helper to add a div.
        type is the name of a CSS class (old/new/error).
        msg is the contents of the div */
        $("#messages").append(
            "<div class='msg "+ type +"'>"+ msg +"</div>"
        );
    }

    function waitForMsg(){
        /* This requests the url "msgsrv.php"
        When it complete (or errors)*/
        $.ajax({
            type: "GET",
            url: "msgsrv.php",

            async: true, /* If set to non-async, browser shows page as "Loading.."*/
            cache: false,
            timeout:50000, /* Timeout in ms */

            success: function(data){ /* called when request to barge.php completes */
                addmsg("new", data); /* Add response to a .msg div (with the "new" class)*/
                setTimeout(
                    waitForMsg, /* Request next message */
                    1000 /* ..after 1 seconds */
                );
            },
            error: function(XMLHttpRequest, textStatus, errorThrown){
                addmsg("error", textStatus + " (" + errorThrown + ")");
                setTimeout(
                    waitForMsg, /* Try again after.. */
                    15000); /* milliseconds (15seconds) */
            }
        });
    };

    $(document).ready(function(){
        waitForMsg(); /* Start the inital request */
    });
    </script>
</head>
<body>
    <div id="messages">
        <div class="msg old">
            BargePoll message requester!
        </div>
    </div>
</body>
</html>

Java – JSP tricks to make templating easier

As skaffman suggested, JSP 2.0 Tag Files are the bee's knees.

Let's take your simple example.

Put the following in WEB-INF/tags/wrapper.tag

<%@tag description="Simple Wrapper Tag" pageEncoding="UTF-8"%>
<html><body>
  <jsp:doBody/>
</body></html>

Now in your example.jsp page:

<%@page contentType="text/html" pageEncoding="UTF-8"%>
<%@taglib prefix="t" tagdir="/WEB-INF/tags" %>

<t:wrapper>
    <h1>Welcome</h1>
</t:wrapper>

That does exactly what you think it does.

So, lets expand upon that to something a bit more general. WEB-INF/tags/genericpage.tag

<%@tag description="Overall Page template" pageEncoding="UTF-8"%>
<%@attribute name="header" fragment="true" %>
<%@attribute name="footer" fragment="true" %>
<html>
  <body>
    <div id="pageheader">
      <jsp:invoke fragment="header"/>
    </div>
    <div id="body">
      <jsp:doBody/>
    </div>
    <div id="pagefooter">
      <jsp:invoke fragment="footer"/>
    </div>
  </body>
</html>

To use this:

<%@page contentType="text/html" pageEncoding="UTF-8"%>
<%@taglib prefix="t" tagdir="/WEB-INF/tags" %>

<t:genericpage>
    <jsp:attribute name="header">
      <h1>Welcome</h1>
    </jsp:attribute>
    <jsp:attribute name="footer">
      <p id="copyright">Copyright 1927, Future Bits When There Be Bits Inc.</p>
    </jsp:attribute>
    <jsp:body>
        <p>Hi I'm the heart of the message</p>
    </jsp:body>
</t:genericpage>

What does that buy you? A lot really, but it gets even better...

WEB-INF/tags/userpage.tag

<%@tag description="User Page template" pageEncoding="UTF-8"%>
<%@taglib prefix="t" tagdir="/WEB-INF/tags" %>
<%@attribute name="userName" required="true"%>

<t:genericpage>
    <jsp:attribute name="header">
      <h1>Welcome ${userName}</h1>
    </jsp:attribute>
    <jsp:attribute name="footer">
      <p id="copyright">Copyright 1927, Future Bits When There Be Bits Inc.</p>
    </jsp:attribute>
    <jsp:body>
        <jsp:doBody/>
    </jsp:body>
</t:genericpage>

To use this: (assume we have a user variable in the request)

<%@page contentType="text/html" pageEncoding="UTF-8"%>
<%@taglib prefix="t" tagdir="/WEB-INF/tags" %>

<t:userpage userName="${user.fullName}">
  <p>
    First Name: ${user.firstName} <br/>
    Last Name: ${user.lastName} <br/>
    Phone: ${user.phone}<br/>
  </p>
</t:userpage>

But it turns you like to use that user detail block in other places. So, we'll refactor it. WEB-INF/tags/userdetail.tag

<%@tag description="User Page template" pageEncoding="UTF-8"%>
<%@tag import="com.example.User" %>
<%@attribute name="user" required="true" type="com.example.User"%>

First Name: ${user.firstName} <br/>
Last Name: ${user.lastName} <br/>
Phone: ${user.phone}<br/>

Now the previous example becomes:

<%@page contentType="text/html" pageEncoding="UTF-8"%>
<%@taglib prefix="t" tagdir="/WEB-INF/tags" %>

<t:userpage userName="${user.fullName}">
  <p>
    <t:userdetail user="${user}"/>
  </p>
</t:userpage>

The beauty of JSP Tag files is that it lets you basically tag generic markup and then refactor it to your heart's content.

JSP Tag Files have pretty much usurped things like Tiles etc., at least for me. I find them much easier to use as the only structure is what you give it, nothing preconceived. Plus you can use JSP tag files for other things (like the user detail fragment above).

Here's an example that is similar to DisplayTag that I've done, but this is all done with Tag Files (and the Stripes framework, that's the s: tags..). This results in a table of rows, alternating colors, page navigation, etc:

<t:table items="${actionBean.customerList}" var="obj" css_class="display">
  <t:col css_class="checkboxcol">
    <s:checkbox name="customerIds" value="${obj.customerId}"
                onclick="handleCheckboxRangeSelection(this, event);"/>
  </t:col>
  <t:col name="customerId" title="ID"/>
  <t:col name="firstName" title="First Name"/>
  <t:col name="lastName" title="Last Name"/>
  <t:col>
    <s:link href="/Customer.action" event="preEdit">
      Edit
      <s:param name="customer.customerId" value="${obj.customerId}"/>
      <s:param name="page" value="${actionBean.page}"/>
    </s:link>
  </t:col>
</t:table>

Of course the tags work with the JSTL tags (like c:if, etc.). The only thing you can't do within the body of a tag file tag is add Java scriptlet code, but this isn't as much of a limitation as you might think. If I need scriptlet stuff, I just put the logic in to a tag and drop the tag in. Easy.

So, tag files can be pretty much whatever you want them to be. At the most basic level, it's simple cut and paste refactoring. Grab a chunk of layout, cut it out, do some simple parameterization, and replace it with a tag invocation.

At a higher level, you can do sophisticated things like this table tag I have here.

Best Solution

Related Solutions

Php – How to implement basic “Long Polling”

Java – JSP tricks to make templating easier

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