2. class PHPTAL

2. class PHPTAL
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This is the main library class for you to use.

The most common method of use:

<?php

// include the library
require_once 'PHPTAL.php';

// instantiate a new PHPTAL object using specified template file
$tpl = new PHPTAL('mytemplate.html');

// setting some template context variables
$tpl->title  = 'my title';
$tpl->values = array(1,2,3,4);
$tpl->user   = new User('Joe');

// execute the template and echo the result in a 'secure' way
try {
    echo $tpl->execute();
}
catch (Exception $e){
    echo "Exception thrown while processing template\n";
    echo $e;
}
?>

You can perfectly well choose to specify the template source after setting context variables.

<?php
...
$tpl = new PHPTAL();

// it is a matter of taste but you can use the set() method instead of 
// setting context using PHPTAL::__set() like above
$tpl->set('title', 'my title');
$tpl->set('values', array(1,2,3,4));
$tpl->set('user', new User('Joe'));

$tpl->setTemplate('mytemplate.html');
...
?>

You can also decide to use a generated string as the template source instead of using an existing template file:

<?php

$src = <<<EOS
<html>
  <head>
  <title tal:content="title">my title</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <h1 tal:content="title">my title</h1>
  </body>
</html>
EOS;

require_once 'PHPTAL.php';
$tpl = new PHPTAL();
$tpl->setSource($src);
$tpl->title = 'this is my title';
try {
    echo $tpl->execute();
}
catch (Exception $e){
    echo $e;
}

?>

In the above example, because PHPTAL requires a template source idenfifier (usually the template file realpath), PHPTAL will use the md5 of the $src parameter as a unique identifier. You may decide to force the identifier using a second setSource() argument:

<?php
$src = <<<EOS
<html>
  <head>
  <title tal:content="title">my title</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <h1 tal:content="title">my title</h1>
  </body>
</html>
EOS;

require_once 'PHPTAL.php';
$tpl = new PHPTAL();

// because the source is contained in this file and won't be modified unless
// this file is modified, it is 'faster' to specify __FILE__ as the unique 
// source identifier, thus no md5 of $src will be done on each call.
$tpl->setSource($src, __FILE__);
$tpl->title = 'this is my title';
try {
    echo $tpl->execute();
}
catch (Exception $e){
    echo $e;
}

?>