mysql/php - store html templates within the a database

Question

I am wondering the best way to store html templates in a database where I am able to retrieve them and insert variables.

Obviously I could store them as php and then 'EVAL' the record.... but I heard it was evil.

is there a better way? :)

edit:

Sorry I wasn't clear... I tried to simplify it by saying html templates... what I really meant was small embed-able html elements (think youtube)... rather than an entire site.

Answer 1

I would also advice against storing the HTML inside the database. It's much more convenient to store them as templates on the file-system and include them or parse them when needed. I also recommend using something like Smarty. A very handy tool, that is.

However, if you would rather do it manually, here is what I would do.

First, I would store the template in a file on the file-system. If you would rather use a database, that can be done to. Just know that a database will, usually, cause more overhead when used for stuff like this.

For example, in the case of a YouTube video:

<object width="{$width}" height="{$height}">
    <param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/{$path}"></param>
    <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param>
    <param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param>
    <embed src="http://www.youtube.com/{$path}"
           type="application/x-shockwave-flash"
           allowscriptaccess="always"
           allowfullscreen="true"
           width="{$width}" height="{$width}">
    </embed>
</object>

Then I would simply str_replace the PHP variables in there, much like PHP itself does with strings.

<?php
$template_path = 'templates/youtube_vid.tpl';
$template_data = file_get_contents($template_path);

$old = array('{$width}', '{$height}', '{$path}');
$new = array(425, 344, 'v/zuZB2O6orV0&hl=en_US&fs=1&');

echo str_replace($old, $new, $template_data);
?>

And that would be it.

You could of course use <?php $width; ?>-like placeholders and just include the template, but that leaves you at risk for injection attacks. This is the safer route.

Answer 2

Mark, do you need to store templates in the database? This will add a heavy burden to your DB server every time those templates are requested, unless you cache them.

Compare this to the filesystem which has built-in caches to streamline file reads.

Plus you won't have the potential security hole that may come from using eval().

Answer 3

No need to reinvent the wheel, you can use a templating engine and store the templates themselves in a database. Personally I like to store templates in the file-system because it makes things much simpler to maintain, but its your project :)