Smarty must have the variables in `backticks`

Question

I am trying to add 2 variable together inside of an assign. When reading the Smarty Assign Documentation it says: This complex example must have the variables in backticks, what does this mean?

Answer 1

It is the following sign `

So you have

 assign variable = `value`

Answer 2

According to the official Smarty documentation,

• Smarty will recognize assigned variables embedded in "double quotes" so long as the variable name contains only numbers, letters, under_scores and brackets[].
• With any other characters, for example a .period or $object->reference, then the variable must be surrounded by `backticks`.

In particular, if you are doing maths in, say, an assign, you need to use backticks for it to work.

Answer 3

backticks are only necessary when inside quotes, and when you have variables with characters such as . -> example:

{assign var="foo" value="myval is `$smarty.request.myval`"}