Is there any way to return HTML in a PHP function without building the return value as a string

Question

I have a PHP function that I m using to output a standard block of HTML  It currently looks like this     lt  php function TestBlockHTML   replStr      gt       lt html gt       lt body gt  lt h1 gt   lt  php echo   replStr    gt   lt  h1 gt       lt  html gt   lt  php     gt    I want to return  rather than echo  the HTML inside the function  Is there any way to do this without building up the HTML  above  in a string

User · Answer

Yes  there is  you can capture the echoed text using ob start   lt  php function TestBlockHTML  replStr        ob start      gt       lt html gt       lt body gt  lt h1 gt  lt  php echo  replStr    gt  lt  h1 gt       lt  html gt   lt  php     return ob get clean        gt

User · Answer

Another way to do is is to use file get contents   and have a template HTML page  TEMPLATE PAGE   lt  DOCTYPE html PUBLIC  -  W3C  DTD XHTML 1 0 Strict  EN   http   www w3 org TR xhtml1 DTD xhtml1-strict dtd  gt   lt html gt   lt head gt  lt title gt  title lt  title gt  lt  head gt   lt body gt  content lt  body gt   lt  html gt    PHP Function  function YOURFUNCTIONNAME  url     html string   file get contents  url   return  html string

User · Answer

This may be a sketchy solution  and I d appreciate anybody pointing out whether this is a bad idea  since it s not a standard use of functions  I ve had some success getting HTML out of a PHP function without building the return value as a string with the following   function noStrings         echo     gt           lt div gt  Whatever HTML you want  lt  div gt       lt  php      The just  call  the function   noStrings      And it will output    lt div gt  Whatever HTML you want  lt  div gt    Using this method  you can also define PHP variables within the function and echo them out inside the HTML

User · Answer

If you don t want to have to rely on a third party tool you can use this technique   function TestBlockHTML  replStr      template         lt html gt        lt body gt          lt h1 gt  str lt  h1 gt        lt  body gt      lt  html gt     return strtr  template  array    str    gt   replStr

User · Answer

Or you can just use this    lt   function TestHtml        PUT HERE YOU PHP CODE   gt   lt  -- HTML HERE -- gt    lt       gt    to get content from this function   use this      lt    file get contents TestHtml       gt    That s it

User · Answer

You can use a heredoc  which supports variable interpolation  making it look fairly neat   function TestBlockHTML   replStr    return  lt  lt  lt HTML      lt html gt       lt body gt  lt h1 gt   replStr  lt  h1 gt       lt  body gt       lt  html gt  HTML      Pay close attention to the warning in the manual though - the closing line must not contain any whitespace  so can t be indented

User · Answer

Create a template file and use a template engine to read update the file  It will increase your code s maintainability in the future as well as separate display from logic   An example using Smarty   Template File   lt  DOCTYPE html PUBLIC  -  W3C  DTD XHTML 1 0 Strict  EN   http   www w3 org TR xhtml1 DTD xhtml1-strict dtd  gt   lt html gt   lt head gt  lt title gt   title  lt  title gt  lt  head gt   lt body gt   string  lt  body gt   lt  html gt    Code  function TestBlockHTML       smarty   new Smarty       smarty- gt assign  title    My Title       smarty- gt assign  string    replStr     return  smarty- gt render  template tpl

User · Answer

Template File   lt h1 gt  title  lt  h1 gt   lt div gt  username  lt  div gt    PHP  if    text   file get contents  file html        false         text           text   str replace   title     Title Here    text    text   str replace   username     Username Here    text     then you can echo  text as string

[php] Is there any way to return HTML in a PHP function? (without building the return value as a string)

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