Multiple templates: Rows of data into a table - PHP
Why separate presentation from logic?The simple answer to the question is, "It keeps things simple". If presentation wasn't separated from logic around your house, you'd have to be an electrician to replace light-switch covers. The same goes for large-scale web applications. Graphic designers shouldn't need to be software engineers in order to update the fonts in a web page. Separating logic from presentation makes that possible.
Perhaps the data needed for the web page is a table of records from a database. The best way to present it would be through a table. With FastTemplate this can be accomplished cleanly. Look at this variation on the previous example to see how its done.
<?php
//getData.php
include "class.FastTemplate.php3";
//instantiate a new FastTemplate instance
$tpl = new FastTemplate("../templates");
//associate three HTML templates to a variables
//toplevel is the parent document, table is parent to the rows template,
//rows contains the data
$tpl->define(array(
"toplevel" => "phone_numbers.tpl"
"table" => "table.tpl",
"rows" => "rows.tpl"
));
//Connect to database
mysql_connect (localhost, root, passwd);
//select database to use
mysql_select_db (testDB);
//select entire set of records from MySQL database for example code
$GetData = mysql_query ("select Phone from Business");
//Get array results
if ($GetDataArray = mysql_fetch_array($GetData)) {
do {
//Associate contents of hash array with variable
$Phone = $GetDataArray["Phone"];
//assign $Phone to FastTemplate instance
$tpl->assign("PHONE", $Phone);
//concatenate each row of data as the do
//loop cycles through the array of records
$tpl->parse(ROWS, ".rows");
}while ($GetDataArray = mysql_fetch_array($GetData));
//when all the records have been obtained
//and parsed through the ROWS template,
//parse the entire table
$tpl->parse(PHONERECORDS, "table");
//pass the data to the HTML template
$tpl->parse(MAIN, "toplevel");
$tpl->FastPrint();
}
//if no records found, print error message
else {
print("Error obtaining data.");
}
?>
In this example, the data for PHONE will be parsed through
the ROWS (rows.tpl) template which looks like this:
<TR>
<TD>
{PHONE}
</TD>
</TR>
Each row will be connected to the end of the previous one.
Once they have all been parsed, the entire set will be parsed as whole and placed in the TABLE (table.tpl) template, which looks like this:
<TABLE>
{ROWS}
</TABLE>
Finally, the entire table of records will parsed through the
parent template which looks like this:
<HTML>
<BODY>
<P>
Record of phone numbers:
{PHONERECORDS}
</P>
</BODY>
</HTML>
Now the entire set of data has been parsed and displayed to
the screen cleanly formatted and completely separate from logic. At this point, designers can edit the template files for different fonts, images, text, etc. and leave the code alone.
