Creating a template site with PHP

Templates should consist of 2 parts: getting data part and displaying data part.
While getting data, not a single character should be printed out.
If some errors occurred, display an error page.
Once you get all your data with no errors – it’s time to include a template. A template itself should be of 2 parts too: page template and common site template. By sorting things this way you’ll solve all your present and future templating problems.

A typical script may look like

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

//include our settings, connect to database etc.

include dirname($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']).'/cfg/settings.php';

//getting required data

$DATA=dbgetarr("SELECT * FROM links");

$pagetitle = "Links to friend sites";

//etc

//and then call a template:

$tpl = "links.php";

include "template.php";

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

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

<head>

</head>

<body>

<? include $tpl ?>

</div>

</body>

</html>

and links.php is the actual page template:

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

<ul>

<? foreach($DATA as $row): ?>

<li><a href="<?=$row['link']?>" target="_blank"><?=$row['name']?></a></li>

<? endforeach ?>

<ul>

easy, clean and maintainable.

settings.php contains all common settings:

&lt;?php
$hostname_conn,$database_conn,$username_conn,$password_conn,$conn;
$hostname_conn = "localhost";
$database_conn = "test";
$username_conn = "****";
$password_conn = "****";
$conn = mysql_connect($hostname_conn, $username_conn, $password_conn) 
         or trigger_error(mysql_error(),E_USER_ERROR); 
mysql_query("SET NAMES 'utf8'") or trigger_error(mysql_error(),E_USER_ERROR);

$tpl = "default.php";
$pagetitle = "";

function dbgetarr(){
  $a     = array();
  $args  = func_get_args();
  $query = array_shift($args); 
  $query = str_replace("%s","'%s'",$query); 
  foreach ($args as $key =&gt; $val) { 
    $args[$key] = mysql_real_escape_string($val); 
  } 
  $query = vsprintf($query, $args);

  $res = mysql_query($query);
  if (!$res) {
    trigger_error("dbget: ".mysql_error()." in ".$query);
  } else {
    while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($res)) $a[]=$row;
  }
  return $a;
}

?&gt;

<?php

$hostname_conn,$database_conn,$username_conn,$password_conn,$conn;

$hostname_conn = "localhost";

$database_conn = "test";

$username_conn = "****";

$password_conn = "****";

$conn = mysql_connect($hostname_conn, $username_conn, $password_conn)

or trigger_error(mysql_error(),E_USER_ERROR);

mysql_query("SET NAMES 'utf8'") or trigger_error(mysql_error(),E_USER_ERROR);

$tpl = "default.php";

$pagetitle = "";

function dbgetarr(){

$a = array();

$args = func_get_args();

$query = array_shift($args);

$query = str_replace("%s","'%s'",$query);

foreach ($args as $key => $val) {

$args[$key] = mysql_real_escape_string($val);

}

$query = vsprintf($query, $args);

$res = mysql_query($query);

if (!$res) {

trigger_error("dbget: ".mysql_error()." in ".$query);

} else {

while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($res)) $a[]=$row;

}

return $a;

}

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