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Reading templates from various data sources

patTemplate is not limited to reading templates from the file system, but uses a driver based approach to read templates from virtually anywhere.

This driver-based approach has two benefits:

1. Templates can be read from any data source
2. Different drivers may parse a different template format

A driver to read templates is called a template reader. Currently, the following readers are available:

• String, reads templates from a string, can be used when your templates are created at runtime.
• File, reads templates from one or more files. This is the default reader.
• DB, reads templates from any database that is supported by PEAR::DB
• IT, reads templates in the HTML_Template_IT format from the filesystem

The reader to use can be specified when parseTemplatesFromInput() is called:

$tmpl = new patTemplate();
$tmpl->readTemplatesFromInput('MyTemplates.tmpl', 'File');

If you want to use the file reader, the reader name is optional.

Reading templates from file

Reading templates from a file is the most common task. You may use the setRoot() method to specify one or more folders, where the templates are located.

$tmpl = new patTemplate();
$tmpl->setRoot('/path/to/templates', 'File');
$tmpl->readTemplatesFromInput('myTemplate.tmpl');

Reading templates from a string

Reading a template from a string might be helpful, when you need to read a template from a source, that is not supported by patTemplate and implementing a new reader would be overkill.

All you need to do is pass the template source to the readTemplatesFromInput() method:

$string = '<patTemplate:tmpl name="string">This template has been parsed from a string <patTemplate:tmpl name="too">, as well as this.</patTemplate:tmpl></patTemplate:tmpl>';

$tmpl = new patTemplate();
$tmpl->readTemplatesFromInput( $string, 'String' );

Reading templates from a database

When reading your templates from a database, the PEAR::DB abstraction layer will be used. You need to pass the DSN string to the setRoot() method:

tmpl = new patTemplate();
$tmpl->setRoot('mysql://root:@localhost/test', 'DB');

Imagine, your templates are stored in a table called templates that has to fields:

• id, unique id for a template
• content, a text field containing the actual template

If you want to read a template called foo from the database, you may use to different ways. One would be passing the SQL statement to the readTemplatesFromInput() method:

$tmpl->readTemplatesFromInput("SELECT content FROM templates WHERE id='foo'", 'DB');

However, if your table is that simple, you can let the reader build the query for you and use an XPath-like syntax:

$tmpl->readTemplatesFromInput('templates[@id=foo]/@content', 'DB');

This string consists of the following parts:

$table[@$keyName=$keyValue]/@$templateField

Reading HTML_Template_IT templates

The IT reader allows you to read templates in the HTML_Template_IT or PHPLib syntax. The reader itself works exactly like the File reader.