Posted by Mattias Thorslund on 04/30/05 01:31

Jason Barnett wrote:

> Mattias Thorslund wrote:
> ...
>
>>
>>
>> Who says PHP itself is a template engine? I think nobody. What are
>> the "basic template features"?
>
>
> Variables / placeholders
> Looping construct(s)
> Conditionals
> A way to apply styles to text / markup


So I suppose I'm just confused over what constitutes a templating
engine? I was thinking that the class/tool/program/whatever that handles
the templates would be the "template engine". I'm aware that a
PHP-as-template-template would use PHP's native syntax for
variables/loops/conditionals.

Then I wonder what makes skol29 think PHP's "basic template features"
are "too poor" to be used seriously? I think PHP's "basic template
features" are phenomenal.


>> However, there is a school of thought regarding templates that
>> advocates template engines (written in, for instance, PHP) which use
>> PHP as their template syntax, so that there is no need to invent new
>> tags or placeholders. You could read the article I linked to before,
>> it has examples. Actually, here's the link again:
>>
>> http://www.massassi.com/php/articles/template_engines/
>>
>
> The point of this article is that PHP is a good template engine ;)


As I saw it, the PHP class described in the article would be the
template, but that's obviously a misconception on my part. What's the
generic term for the template handling class, then?

Cheers,

Mattias

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