Question

I know in php you can embed variables inside variables, like:

<? $var1 = "I\'m including {$var2} in this variable.."; ?>

But I was wondering how, and if it was possible to include a function inside a variable. I know I could just write:

<?php
$var1 = "I\'m including ";
$var1 .= somefunc();
$var1 = " in this variable..";
?>

But what if I have a long variable for output, and I don't want to do this every time, or I want to use multiple functions:

<?php
$var1 = <<<EOF
    <html lang="en">
        <head>
            <title>AAAHHHHH</title>
            <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8">
        </head>
        <body>
            There is <b>alot</b> of text and html here... but I want some <i>functions</i>!
            -somefunc() doesn't work
            -{somefunc()} doesn't work
            -$somefunc() and {$somefunc()} doesn't work of course because a function needs to be a string
            -more non-working: ${somefunc()}
        </body>
    </html>
EOF;
?>

Or I want dynamic changes in that load of code:

<?
function somefunc($stuff) {
    $output = "my bold text <b>{$stuff}</b>.";
    return $output;
}

$var1 = <<<EOF
    <html lang="en">
        <head>
            <title>AAAHHHHH</title>
            <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8">
        </head>
        <body>
            somefunc("is awesome!") 
            somefunc("is actually not so awesome..") 
            because somefunc("won\'t work due to my problem.")
        </body>
    </html>
EOF;
?>

Well?

Was it helpful?

Solution

Function calls within strings are supported since PHP5 by having a variable containing the name of the function to call:

<?
function somefunc($stuff)
{
    $output = "<b>{$stuff}</b>";
    return $output;
}
$somefunc='somefunc';
echo "foo {$somefunc("bar")} baz";
?>

will output "foo <b>bar</b> baz".

I find it easier however (and this works in PHP4) to either just call the function outside of the string:

<?
echo "foo " . somefunc("bar") . " baz";
?>

or assign to a temporary variable:

<?
$bar = somefunc("bar");
echo "foo {$bar} baz";
?>

OTHER TIPS

"bla bla bla".function("blub")." and on it goes"

Expanding a bit on what Jason W said:

I find it easier however (and this works in PHP4) to either just call the 
function outside of the string:

<?
echo "foo " . somefunc("bar") . " baz";
?>

You can also just embed this function call directly in your html, like:

<?

function get_date() {
    $date = `date`;
    return $date;
}

function page_title() {
    $title = "Today's date is: ". get_date() ."!";
    echo "$title";
}

function page_body() {
    $body = "Hello";
    $body = ",  World!";
    $body = "\n
\n"; $body = "Today is: " . get_date() . "\n"; } ?> <html> <head> <title><? page_title(); ?></title> </head> <body> <? page_body(); ?> </body> </html>
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