Kohana Forums

But it's not. PHP templating is actually rather poor.

For example, I develop quite a lot using Magento, the mixture of PHP/Html in views is better than using some text replacement system to replace {{heading}} with a line of text when you can just use a variable and be done with it. Ending up with a file full of text and no PHP, and then using PHP to parse the text just seems a little backward to me that's all :)

This is where view classes come into play. Views should have logic in them (view logic doesn't belong in the controller), just not in the template file.

I usually end up extending view classes this way, the only thing I was saying I don't agree with is trying to shift all PHP out of the view files and replace it with some crazy string replacements. PHP is excellent for mixing with HTML in view files IMO.

And using eval with string replacements inside the view class seems nasty aswell - using eval on potentially hundreds of variables accross many views is hacky to me ;)

An example from the mustache docs:

• {{default_tags}} {{=<% %>=}}
• <% erb_style_tags %> <%={{ }}=%>
• {{ default_tags_again }}

Parsing something this in PHP seems totally absurd to me when you could achieve the same goal with the same amount of code using mixed PHP/HTML, passing values in to the view etc. I really don't see any benifit of this approach what so ever, it reduces readability and will certainly have an additional performance overhead. :)

I really don't see any benifit of this approach what so ever, it reduces readability and will certainly have an additional performance overhead. :)

Right, that's what Kohana-View is for. For people like you. :)

You still get to use <?=?> (it's real php, except auto-escaped for xss [you can even turn that off if you want to]), and you can still bastardize your template files with view logic if you really want to.

The whole point is: View logic should live in a class, and all your template should be doing is echo, foreach, and if(isset())

The specific implinetation of this is a moot point. I prefer mustache because it forces me to put my logic in the class. I can't mess it up.

My views only every have foreach, issets, echo, maybe the odd useage of a helper class in a simple echo

Except if you aren't using class based views, your view logic is in the wrong place (probably the controller) ;)

Hi, zombor. You previously emphasized on the reusability of templates. But for your example, how is a mere HTML + PHP placeholders template reused for xml or json? Can you explain it?

Well, say you have a html view of a news feed. You want to do a RSS version of it. All the variables are the same, including the logic to create the variables. You can have a View_News_RSS class that extends your View_News class, and simply changes the template in View_News_RSS, but uses the same variables that are inherited from View_News.

I want to use some helpers to do small conversion stuff. is it a bit overkill to move them all to view class?

The rule is to put every kind of non echo in the class. This includes helper calls.

I need branching to control whether to display some small snippets, use if or move them to view class?

It's OK to do things like if (isset()) or if (empty()). This is done frequently in mustache to control whats shown in the template.

I need to render complex tables, or forms, or other complex stuff, and tracing their html outputs makes me finally lost in the inheritance and abstraction of view classes. How can I do?

Here's a simple example of rending zebra stripes, it may help:

http://github.com/zombor/KOstache/blob/master/classes/view/striping.php#L14 http://github.com/zombor/KOstache/blob/master/templates/striping.mustache#L13

If you have a more concrete example of what you would exactly do in your template, I can help "move" it to the class. It sometimes takes a different way of thinking to do it.

I wasn't saying have load of logic inside a template, but are you telling me that:

<?php foreach($blas as $bla): ?> Something <?php endofreach ?>

is including more logic than (what ever the syntax is):

{{#bla}}something{{/bla}}

It is the same but with an added layer of micky mouse regex/str replace parser added on top.

If you add lots of PHP code into your templates, indeed you are a fool. This should be in a different layer I agree that (not controller, neither the template - a view class would do nicely).

But simple regexing PHP to replace PHP tags with something is a joke. You even most liley lose your auto complete / highlight / indent while writing your HTML inside the template too.