Smarty ManualMonte Ohrt <monte at ohrt dot com>Andrei Zmievski <andrei@php.net>

Smarty - the compiling PHP template engine
by Monte Ohrt <monte at ohrt dot com> and Andrei Zmievski <andrei@php.net>
Publication date 2010-09-20
Copyright © 2001-2005 New Digital Group, Inc.

Table of Contents
Preface ............................................................................................................................ xii
I. Getting Started ................................................................................................................ 1
1. What is Smarty? ..................................................................................................... 3
2. Installation ............................................................................................................. 5
Requirements ..................................................................................................... 5
Basic Installation ................................................................................................ 5
Extended Setup .................................................................................................. 9
II. Smarty For Template Designers ...................................................................................... 12
3. Basic Syntax ........................................................................................................ 15
Comments ....................................................................................................... 15
Variables ......................................................................................................... 17
Functions ......................................................................................................... 17
Attributes ........................................................................................................ 18
Embedding Vars in Double Quotes ...................................................................... 19
Math ............................................................................................................... 20
Escaping Smarty Parsing .................................................................................... 20
4. Variables ............................................................................................................. 22
Variables assigned from PHP .............................................................................. 22
Associative arrays ..................................................................................... 23
Array indexes ........................................................................................... 24
Objects .................................................................................................... 25
Variables loaded from config files ....................................................................... 26{$smarty} reserved variable ................................................................................ 28
Request variables ...................................................................................... 28{$smarty.now} ......................................................................................... 29{$smarty.const} ........................................................................................ 29{$smarty.capture} ..................................................................................... 29{$smarty.config} ....................................................................................... 29{$smarty.section}, {$smarty.foreach} ........................................................... 29{$smarty.template} .................................................................................... 29{$smarty.version} ..................................................................................... 30{$smarty.ldelim}, {$smarty.rdelim} ............................................................. 30
5. Variable Modifiers ................................................................................................ 31
capitalize ......................................................................................................... 32
cat .................................................................................................................. 33
count_characters ............................................................................................... 34
count_paragraphs .............................................................................................. 35
count_sentences ................................................................................................ 36
count_words ..................................................................................................... 37
date_format ...................................................................................................... 38
default ............................................................................................................ 41
escape ............................................................................................................. 42
indent ............................................................................................................. 44
lower .............................................................................................................. 46
nl2br ............................................................................................................... 46
regex_replace ................................................................................................... 47
replace ............................................................................................................ 48
spacify ............................................................................................................ 49
string_format .................................................................................................... 50
strip ................................................................................................................ 51
strip_tags ......................................................................................................... 52

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truncate ........................................................................................................... 53
upper .............................................................................................................. 55
wordwrap ........................................................................................................ 56
6. Combining Modifiers ............................................................................................. 59
7. Built-in Functions .................................................................................................. 60{capture} ......................................................................................................... 60{config_load} ................................................................................................... 61{foreach},{foreachelse} ..................................................................................... 63.index ..................................................................................................... 68.iteration .................................................................................................. 68.first ....................................................................................................... 69.last ........................................................................................................ 69.show ...................................................................................................... 69.total ....................................................................................................... 70{if},{elseif},{else} ............................................................................................ 70{include} ......................................................................................................... 73{include_php} .................................................................................................. 75{insert} ........................................................................................................... 77{ldelim},{rdelim} ............................................................................................. 78{literal} ........................................................................................................... 80{php} .............................................................................................................. 81{section},{sectionelse} ....................................................................................... 82.index ..................................................................................................... 89.index_prev .............................................................................................. 90.index_next .............................................................................................. 90.iteration .................................................................................................. 91.first ....................................................................................................... 93.last ........................................................................................................ 93.rownum .................................................................................................. 93.loop ....................................................................................................... 93.show ...................................................................................................... 94.total ....................................................................................................... 95{strip} ............................................................................................................. 95
8. Custom Functions .................................................................................................. 97{assign} .......................................................................................................... 97{counter} ......................................................................................................... 98{cycle} ........................................................................................................... 99{debug} ......................................................................................................... 101{eval} ........................................................................................................... 101{fetch} .......................................................................................................... 103{html_checkboxes} .......................................................................................... 104{html_image} ................................................................................................. 107{html_options} ............................................................................................... 108{html_radios} ................................................................................................. 112{html_select_date} .......................................................................................... 115{html_select_time} .......................................................................................... 119{html_table} ................................................................................................... 122{mailto} ........................................................................................................ 125{math} .......................................................................................................... 126{textformat} ................................................................................................... 129
9. Config Files ........................................................................................................ 132
10. Debugging Console ............................................................................................ 134
III. Smarty For Programmers ............................................................................................. 135
11. Constants .......................................................................................................... 139

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SMARTY_DIR ............................................................................................... 139
SMARTY_CORE_DIR .................................................................................... 139
12. Smarty Class Variables ....................................................................................... 140$template_dir .................................................................................................. 140$compile_dir .................................................................................................. 140$config_dir ..................................................................................................... 140$plugins_dir ................................................................................................... 140$debugging .................................................................................................... 141$debug_tpl ..................................................................................................... 141$debugging_ctrl .............................................................................................. 141$autoload_filters .............................................................................................. 142$compile_check .............................................................................................. 142$force_compile ............................................................................................... 142$caching ........................................................................................................ 143$cache_dir ..................................................................................................... 143$cache_lifetime ............................................................................................... 143$cache_handler_func ........................................................................................ 144$cache_modified_check .................................................................................... 144$config_overwrite ............................................................................................ 144$config_booleanize .......................................................................................... 145$config_read_hidden ........................................................................................ 145$config_fix_newlines ....................................................................................... 145$default_template_handler_func ......................................................................... 145$php_handling ................................................................................................ 145$security ........................................................................................................ 145$secure_dir ..................................................................................................... 146$security_settings ............................................................................................ 146$trusted_dir .................................................................................................... 146$left_delimiter ................................................................................................ 147$right_delimiter .............................................................................................. 147$compiler_class .............................................................................................. 147$request_vars_order ......................................................................................... 147$request_use_auto_globals ................................................................................ 147$error_reporting .............................................................................................. 147$compile_id ................................................................................................... 147$use_sub_dirs ................................................................................................. 148$default_modifiers ........................................................................................... 148$default_resource_type ..................................................................................... 148
13. Smarty Class Methods() ...................................................................................... 149
append() ........................................................................................................ 150
append_by_ref() .............................................................................................. 151
assign() .......................................................................................................... 152
assign_by_ref() ............................................................................................... 153
clear_all_assign() ............................................................................................ 154
clear_all_cache() ............................................................................................. 155
clear_assign() ................................................................................................. 156
clear_cache() .................................................................................................. 157
clear_compiled_tpl() ........................................................................................ 158
clear_config() ................................................................................................. 159
config_load() .................................................................................................. 160
display() ........................................................................................................ 161
fetch() ........................................................................................................... 163
get_config_vars() ............................................................................................ 165
get_registered_object() ..................................................................................... 166v

Smarty Manual

get_template_vars() .......................................................................................... 167
is_cached() ..................................................................................................... 168
load_filter() .................................................................................................... 170
register_block() ............................................................................................... 171
register_compiler_function() .............................................................................. 173
register_function() ........................................................................................... 174
register_modifier() ........................................................................................... 176
register_object() .............................................................................................. 177
register_outputfilter() ....................................................................................... 178
register_postfilter() .......................................................................................... 179
register_prefilter() ............................................................................................ 180
register_resource() ........................................................................................... 181
trigger_error() ................................................................................................. 182
template_exists() ............................................................................................. 183
unregister_block() ............................................................................................ 184
unregister_compiler_function() .......................................................................... 185
unregister_function .......................................................................................... 186
unregister_modifier() ........................................................................................ 187
unregister_object() ........................................................................................... 188
unregister_outputfilter() .................................................................................... 189
unregister_postfilter() ....................................................................................... 190
unregister_prefilter() ........................................................................................ 191
unregister_resource() ........................................................................................ 192
14. Caching ............................................................................................................ 193
Setting Up Caching ......................................................................................... 193
Multiple Caches Per Page ................................................................................. 195
Cache Groups ................................................................................................. 197
Controlling Cacheability of Plugins' Output ......................................................... 198
15. Advanced Features ............................................................................................. 201
Objects .......................................................................................................... 201
Prefilters ........................................................................................................ 203
Postfilters ....................................................................................................... 203
Output Filters ................................................................................................. 204
Cache Handler Function ................................................................................... 205
Resources ...................................................................................................... 207
Templates from $template_dir ................................................................... 207
Templates from any directory .................................................................... 207
Templates from other sources .................................................................... 208
Default template handler function ............................................................... 210
16. Extending Smarty With Plugins ............................................................................ 211
How Plugins Work .......................................................................................... 211
Naming Conventions ....................................................................................... 211
Writing Plugins ............................................................................................... 212
Template Functions ......................................................................................... 212
Modifiers ....................................................................................................... 214
Block Functions .............................................................................................. 216
Compiler Functions ......................................................................................... 218
Prefilters/Postfilters .......................................................................................... 219
Output Filters ................................................................................................. 220
Resources ...................................................................................................... 221
Inserts ........................................................................................................... 223
IV. Appendixes ............................................................................................................... 225
17. Troubleshooting ................................................................................................. 227
Smarty/PHP errors ........................................................................................... 227

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18. Tips & Tricks ................................................................................................... 229
Blank Variable Handling .................................................................................. 229
Default Variable Handling ................................................................................ 229
Passing variable title to header template .............................................................. 230
Dates ............................................................................................................ 231
WAP/WML .................................................................................................... 232
Componentized Templates ................................................................................ 234
Obfuscating E-mail Addresses ........................................................................... 235
19. Resources ......................................................................................................... 236
20. BUGS .............................................................................................................. 237

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List of Examples
2.1. Required Smarty library files .......................................................................................... 5
2.2. Set SMARTY_DIR constant manually ............................................................................. 6
2.3. Supply absolute path to library file .................................................................................. 6
2.4. Add the library path to the php.ini file ......................................................................... 6
2.5. Appending the include path in a php script with ini_set() ..................................................... 7
2.6. What the file structure looks like .................................................................................... 7
2.7. Permissions and making directories writable ...................................................................... 8
2.8. /web/www.example.com/guestbook/templates/index.tpl ........................................................ 8
2.9. Editing /web/www.example.com/docs/guestbook/index.php .................................................. 92.10. /php/includes/guestbook/setup.php ................................................................................ 10
2.11. /web/www.example.com/guestbook/htdocs/index.php ....................................................... 11
3.1. Comments within a template ......................................................................................... 16
3.2. Variables ................................................................................................................... 173.3. function syntax .......................................................................................................... 18
3.4. function attribute syntax ............................................................................................... 19
3.5. Syntax examples ......................................................................................................... 19
3.6. Practical examples ...................................................................................................... 20
3.7. math examples ........................................................................................................... 20
3.8. changing delimiters example ......................................................................................... 21
4.1. Example variables ....................................................................................................... 224.2. Assigned variables ...................................................................................................... 23
4.3. Accessing associative array variables .............................................................................. 24
4.4. Accessing arrays by index ............................................................................................ 25
4.5. Accessing object properties .......................................................................................... 26
4.6. config variables .......................................................................................................... 27
4.7. Displaying request variables ......................................................................................... 28
5.1. Modifier examples ...................................................................................................... 31
5.2. capitalize ................................................................................................................... 33
5.3. cat ............................................................................................................................ 34
5.4. count_characters ......................................................................................................... 35
5.5. count_paragraphs ........................................................................................................ 36
5.6. count_sentences .......................................................................................................... 37
5.7. count_words .............................................................................................................. 38
5.8. date_format ................................................................................................................ 39
5.9. default ...................................................................................................................... 42
5.10. escape ..................................................................................................................... 43
5.11. Other examples ......................................................................................................... 44
5.12. indent ...................................................................................................................... 45
5.13. lower ...................................................................................................................... 46
5.14. nl2br ....................................................................................................................... 47
5.15. regex_replace ........................................................................................................... 48
5.16. replace .................................................................................................................... 49
5.17. spacify .................................................................................................................... 50
5.18. string_format ............................................................................................................ 51
5.19. strip ........................................................................................................................ 52
5.20. strip_tags ................................................................................................................. 53
5.21. truncate ................................................................................................................... 55
5.22. upper ...................................................................................................................... 56
5.23. wordwrap ................................................................................................................ 57
6.1. combining modifiers .................................................................................................... 59
7.1. {capture} with the name attribute .................................................................................. 60

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7.2. {capture} into a template variable .................................................................................. 61
7.3. {config_load} ............................................................................................................. 62
7.4. function {config_load} with section ............................................................................... 63
7.5. The item attribute ..................................................................................................... 64
7.6. Demonstrates the item and key attributes ..................................................................... 65
7.7. {foreach} with associative item attribute ....................................................................... 66
7.8. {foreach} with nested item and key ............................................................................ 67
7.9. Database example with {foreachelse} ............................................................................. 68
7.10. index example ........................................................................................................ 68
7.11. iteration and index example ............................................................................... 69
7.12. first property example ........................................................................................... 69
7.13. last property example ............................................................................................. 69
7.14. total property example ........................................................................................... 70
7.15. {if} statements .......................................................................................................... 72
7.16. {if} with more examples ............................................................................................ 73
7.17. Simple {include} example .......................................................................................... 74
7.18. {include} passing variables ......................................................................................... 74
7.19. {include} and assign to variable .................................................................................. 75
7.20. Various {include} resource examples ............................................................................ 75
7.21. function {include_php} .............................................................................................. 77
7.22. function {insert} ....................................................................................................... 78
7.23. {ldelim}, {rdelim} .................................................................................................... 79
7.24. Another Javascript example ........................................................................................ 79
7.25. {literal} tags ............................................................................................................ 80
7.26. Javascript function example ........................................................................................ 80
7.27. Some css style in a template ....................................................................................... 81
7.28. php code within {php} tags ........................................................................................ 81
7.29. {php} tags with global and assigning a variable .............................................................. 82
7.30. Looping a simple array with {section} .......................................................................... 84
7.31. {section} without an assigned array .............................................................................. 85
7.32. Naming a {section} ................................................................................................... 85
7.33. Looping an associative array with {section} ................................................................... 86
7.34. {section} demonstrating the loop variable .................................................................... 87
7.35. Nested {section}'s ..................................................................................................... 88
7.36. Database example with a {sectionelse} ......................................................................... 89
7.37. {section} index property .......................................................................................... 90
7.38. index, index_next and index_prev properties ..................................................... 91
7.39. A section's iteration property ............................................................................... 92
7.40. {section} property first and last ........................................................................... 93
7.41. {section} property loop ............................................................................................ 94
7.42. show property ........................................................................................................ 95
7.43. total property example ........................................................................................... 95
7.44. {strip} tags .............................................................................................................. 96
8.1. {assign} .................................................................................................................... 97
8.2. {assign} with some maths ............................................................................................ 97
8.3. Accessing {assign} variables from a PHP script ............................................................... 98
8.4. {counter} .................................................................................................................. 99
8.5. {cycle} .................................................................................................................... 101
8.6. {eval} ..................................................................................................................... 102
8.7. Another {eval} example ............................................................................................. 103
8.8. {fetch} examples ...................................................................................................... 104
8.9. {html_checkboxes} .................................................................................................... 106
8.10. Database example (eg PEAR or ADODB): .................................................................. 107
8.11. {html_image} example ............................................................................................. 108

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8.12. Associative array with the options attribute .............................................................. 109
8.13. Dropdown with seperate arrays for values and ouptut .............................................. 110
8.14. Database example (eg ADODB or PEAR) ................................................................... 111
8.15. Dropdown's with <optgroup> ................................................................................... 112
8.16. {html_radios} first example ....................................................................................... 113
8.17. {html_radios} second example ................................................................................... 114
8.18. {html_radios} - Database example (eg PEAR or ADODB): ............................................. 115
8.19. {html_select_date} ................................................................................................... 118
8.20. {html_select_date} second example ............................................................................ 119
8.21. {html_select_time} .................................................................................................. 121
8.22. {html_table} ........................................................................................................... 124
8.23. {mailto} example lines followed by the result ............................................................... 126
8.24. {math} .................................................................................................................. 128
8.25. {textformat} ........................................................................................................... 130
9.1. Example of config file syntax ...................................................................................... 132
11.1. SMARTY_DIR ....................................................................................................... 139
11.2. SMARTY_CORE_DIR ............................................................................................. 139
12.1. Appending a local plugin dir ..................................................................................... 141
12.2. Multiple $plugins_dir ............................................................................................... 141
12.3. $debugging_ctrl on localhost ..................................................................................... 142
12.4. Array of config #variables# ....................................................................................... 144
12.5. $secure_dir example ................................................................................................ 146
12.6. $compile_id in a virtual host enviroment ..................................................................... 148
13.1. append ................................................................................................................... 150
13.2. append_by_ref ........................................................................................................ 151
13.3. assign() .................................................................................................................. 152
13.4. assign_by_ref() ....................................................................................................... 153
13.5. clear_all_assign() ..................................................................................................... 154
13.6. clear_all_cache ........................................................................................................ 155
13.7. clear_assign() .......................................................................................................... 156
13.8. clear_cache() .......................................................................................................... 157
13.9. clear_compiled_tpl() ................................................................................................ 158
13.10. clear_config() ........................................................................................................ 159
13.11. config_load() ......................................................................................................... 160
13.12. display() ............................................................................................................... 161
13.13. Other display() template resource examples ................................................................ 162
13.14. fetch() .................................................................................................................. 163
13.15. Using fetch() to send an email ................................................................................. 164
13.16. get_config_vars() ................................................................................................... 165
13.17. get_registered_object() ............................................................................................ 166
13.18. get_template_vars .................................................................................................. 167
13.19. is_cached() ........................................................................................................... 168
13.20. is_cached() with multiple-cache template ................................................................... 169
13.21. Loading filter plugins ............................................................................................. 170
13.22. register_block() ..................................................................................................... 171
13.23. register_function() .................................................................................................. 174
13.24. register_modifier() ................................................................................................. 176
13.25. register_resource() .................................................................................................. 181
13.26. template_exists() .................................................................................................... 183
13.27. unregister_function ................................................................................................. 186
13.28. unregister_modifier() .............................................................................................. 187
13.29. unregister_resource() .............................................................................................. 192
14.1. Enabling caching ..................................................................................................... 193
14.2. Setting $cache_lifetime per cache ............................................................................... 194

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14.3. Enabling $compile_check ......................................................................................... 194
14.4. Using is_cached() .................................................................................................... 195
14.5. Clearing the cache ................................................................................................... 195
14.6. Passing a $cache_id to display() ................................................................................. 196
14.7. Passing a cache_id to is_cached() ............................................................................... 197
14.8. Clearing all caches for a particular $cache_id ............................................................... 197
14.9. $cache_id groups ..................................................................................................... 198
14.10. Preventing a plugin's output from being cached ........................................................... 199
14.11. Preventing a whole passage of a template from being cached ......................................... 200
15.1. Using a registered or assigned object .......................................................................... 202
15.2. Using a template prefilter ......................................................................................... 203
15.3. Using a template postfilter ........................................................................................ 204
15.4. Using a template outputfilter ..................................................................................... 205
15.5. Example using MySQL as a cache source .................................................................... 206
15.6. Using templates from the $template_dir ....................................................................... 207
15.7. Using templates from any directory ............................................................................ 208
15.8. Using templates from windows file paths ..................................................................... 208
15.9. Using custom resources ............................................................................................ 209
15.10. Using the default template handler function ................................................................ 210
16.1. function plugin with output ....................................................................................... 213
16.2. function plugin without output ................................................................................... 214
16.3. A simple modifier plugin .......................................................................................... 215
16.4. More complex modifier plugin ................................................................................... 216
16.5. block function ......................................................................................................... 217
16.6. A simple compiler function ....................................................................................... 218
16.7. prefilter plugin ........................................................................................................ 219
16.8. postfilter plugin ....................................................................................................... 220
16.9. An output filter plugin ............................................................................................. 221
16.10. resource plugin ...................................................................................................... 223
16.11. insert plugin .......................................................................................................... 224
17.1. Smarty errors .......................................................................................................... 227
17.2. PHP parsing errors .................................................................................................. 227
17.3. Other common errors ............................................................................................... 228
18.1. Printing &nbsp; when a variable is empty .................................................................... 229
18.2. Assigning a template variable its default value .............................................................. 229
18.3. Passing the title variable to the header template ............................................................ 230
18.4. Using date_format ................................................................................................... 231
18.5. Converting form date elements back to a timestamp ....................................................... 232
18.6. Using {insert} to write a WML Content-Type header ..................................................... 233
18.7. componentized template ............................................................................................ 234
18.8. Example of template the Obfuscating an email address ................................................... 235

xiPreface
It is undoubtedly one of the most asked questions on the PHP mailing lists: how do I make my PHP scripts
independent of the layout? While PHP is billed as "HTML embedded scripting language", after writing
a couple of projects that mixed PHP and HTML freely one comes up with the idea that separation ofform and content is a Good Thing [TM]. In addition, in many companies the roles of layout designer andprogrammer are separate. Consequently, the search for a templating solution ensues.
In our company for example, the development of an application goes on as follows: After the requirements
docs are done, the interface designer makes mockups of the interface and gives them to the programmer.
The programmer implements business logic in PHP and uses interface mockups to create skeleton
templates. The project is then handed off to the HTML designer/web page layout person who brings the
templates up to their full glory. The project may go back and forth between programming/HTML a coupleof times. Thus, it's important to have good template support because programmers don't want anything to dowith HTML and don't want HTML designers mucking around with PHP code. Designers need support for
config files, dynamic blocks and other interface issues, but they don't want to have to deal with intricaciesof the PHP programming language.
Looking at many templating solutions available for PHP today, most of them provide a rudimentary way of
substituting variables into templates and do a limited form of dynamic block functionality. But our needs
required a bit more than that. We didn't want programmers to be dealing with HTML layout at ALL, but
this was almost inevitable. For instance, if a designer wanted background colors to alternate on dynamic
blocks, this had to be worked out with the programmer in advance. We also needed designers to be able
to use their own configuration files, and pull variables from them into the templates. The list goes on.
We started out writing out a spec for a template engine back in late 1999. After finishing the spec, webegan to work on a template engine written in C that would hopefully be accepted for inclusion with
PHP. Not only did we run into many complicated technical barriers, but there was also much heateddebate about exactly what a template engine should and should not do. From this experience, we decided
that the template engine should be written in PHP as a class, for anyone to use as they see fit. So
we wrote an engine that did just that and SmartTemplate™ came into existence (note: this class wasnever submitted to the public). It was a class that did almost everything we wanted: regular variable
substitution, supported including other templates, integration with config files, embedding PHP code,
limited 'if' statement functionality and much more robust dynamic blocks which could be multiply nested.
It did all this with regular expressions and the code turned out to be rather, shall we say, impenetrable. It
was also noticably slow in large applications from all the parsing and regular expression work it had to doon each invocation. The biggest problem from a programmer's point of view was all the necessary workin the PHP script to setup and process templates and dynamic blocks. How do we make this easier?
Then came the vision of what ultimately became Smarty. We know how fast PHP code is without theoverhead of template parsing. We also know how meticulous and overbearing the PHP language may lookto the average designer, and this could be masked with a much simpler templating syntax. So what if we
combined the two strengths? Thus, Smarty was born... :-)xii

Part I. Getting Started

Table of Contents
1. What is Smarty? ............................................................................................................. 3
2. Installation ..................................................................................................................... 5
Requirements ............................................................................................................. 5
Basic Installation ........................................................................................................ 5
Extended Setup .......................................................................................................... 92

Chapter 1. What is Smarty?
Smarty is a template engine for PHP. More specifically, it facilitates a manageable way to separate
application logic and content from its presentation. This is best described in a situation where theapplication programmer and the template designer play different roles, or in most cases are not the same
person.
For example, let's say you are creating a web page that is displaying a newspaper article.
• The article $headline, $tagline, $author and $body are content elements, they contain no
information about how they will be presented. They are passed into Smarty by the application.
• Then the template designer edits the templates and uses a combination of HTML tags and template tags
to format the presentation of these variables with elements such as tables, div's, background colors, fontsizes, style sheets, svg etc.
• One day the programmer needs to change the way the article content is retrieved, ie a change inapplication logic. This change does not affect the template designer, the content will still arrive in thetemplate exactly the same.
• Likewise, if the template designer wants to completely redesign the templates, this would require nochange to the application logic.
• Therefore, the programmer can make changes to the application logic without the need to restructure
templates, and the template designer can make changes to templates without breaking application logic.
One design goal of Smarty is the separation of business logic and presentation logic.
• This means templates can certainly contain logic under the condition that it is for presentation only.
Things such as including other templates, alternating table row colors, upper-casing a variable, looping
over an array of data and displaying it are examples of presentation logic.
• This does not mean however that Smarty forces a separation of business and presentation logic. Smarty
has no knowledge of which is which, so placing business logic in the template is your own doing.
• Also, if you desire no logic in your templates you certainly can do so by boiling the content down totext and variables only.
Some of Smarty's features:• It is extremely fast.
• It is efficient since the PHP parser does the dirty work.
• No template parsing overhead, only compiles once.
• It is smart about recompiling only the template files that have changed.
• You can easily create your own custom functions and variable modifiers, so the template language isextremely extensible.
• Configurable template {delimiter} tag syntax, so you can use {$foo}, {{$foo}}, <!--{$foo}->, etc.
• The {if}..{elseif}..{else}..{/if} constructs are passed to the PHP parser, so the{if...} expression syntax can be as simple or as complex an evaluation as you like.

3What is Smarty?

• Allows unlimited nesting of sections, if's etc.
• It is possible to embed PHP code right in your template files, although this may not be needed (norrecommended) since the engine is so customizable.
• Built-in caching support• Arbitrary template sources• Custom cache handling functions• Plugin architecture

4Chapter 2. Installation
Requirements
Smarty requires a web server running PHP 4.0.6 or greater.

Basic Installation
Install the Smarty library files which are in the /libs/ sub directory of the distribution. These are .php
files that you SHOULD NOT edit. They are shared among all applications and only get changed when
you upgrade to a new version of Smarty.
In the examples below the Smarty tarball has been unpacked to:• /usr/local/lib/Smarty-v.e.r/ for *nix machines• and c:\webroot\libs\Smarty-v.e.r\ for the windows enviroment.

Example 2.1. Required Smarty library files

Smarty-v.e.r/libs/
Smarty.class.php
Smarty_Compiler.class.php
Config_File.class.php
debug.tpl
internals/*.php (all of them)plugins/*.php(all of them)

Smarty uses a PHP constant [http://php.net/define] named SMARTY_DIR which is the full system file
path to the Smarty libs/ directory. Basically, if your application can find the Smarty.class.php
file, you do not need to set the SMARTY_DIR as Smarty will figure it out on its own. Therefore, if
Smarty.class.php is not in your include_path [http://php.net/ini.core.php#ini.include-path], or you
do not supply an absolute path to it in your application, then you must define SMARTY_DIR manually.
SMARTY_DIR must include a trailing slash/.
Here's how you create an instance of Smarty in your PHP scripts:<?php// NOTE: Smarty has a capital 'S'
require_once('Smarty.class.php');$smarty = new Smarty();?>5

Installation

Try running the above script. If you get an error saying the Smarty.class.php file could not be found,you need to do one of the following:

Example 2.2. Set SMARTY_DIR constant manually<?php// *nix style (note capital 'S')
define('SMARTY_DIR', '/usr/local/lib/Smarty-v.e.r/libs/');// windows styledefine('SMARTY_DIR', 'c:/webroot/libs/Smarty-v.e.r/libs/');// hack version example that works on both *nix and windows// Smarty is assumend to be in 'includes/' dir under current script
define('SMARTY_DIR',str_replace("\\","/",getcwd()).'/includes/Smarty-v.e.r/libs/');require_once(SMARTY_DIR . 'Smarty.class.php');$smarty = new Smarty();?>

Example 2.3. Supply absolute path to library file<?php// *nix style (note capital 'S')
require_once('/usr/local/lib/Smarty-v.e.r/libs/Smarty.class.php');// windows stylerequire_once('c:/webroot/libs/Smarty-v.e.r/libs/Smarty.class.php');$smarty = new Smarty();?>

Example 2.4. Add the library path to the php.ini file;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; Paths and Directories ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; *nix: "/path1:/path2"
include_path = ".:/usr/share/php:/usr/local/lib/Smarty-v.e.r/libs/"; Windows: "\path1;\path2"
include_path = ".;c:\php\includes;c:\webroot\libs\Smarty-v.e.r\libs\"

6

Installation

Example 2.5. Appending the include path in a php script with ini_set()[http://php.net/ini-set]<?php// *nix
ini_set('include_path', ini_get('include_path').PATH_SEPARATOR.'/usr/local/lib/Smar// windows
ini_set('include_path', ini_get('include_path').PATH_SEPARATOR.'c:/webroot/lib/Smar?>

Now that the library files are in place, it's time to setup the Smarty directories for your application:• Smarty requires four directories which are by default named templates/, templates_c/,
configs/ and cache/• Each of these are definable by the Smarty class properties $template_dir, $compile_dir,$config_dir, and $cache_dir respectively• It is highly recommended that you setup a separate set of these directories for each application that will
use Smarty
For our installation example, we will be setting up the Smarty environment for a guest book application.
We picked an application only for the purpose of a directory naming convention. You can use the sameenvironment for any application, just replace guestbook/ with the name of your application.

Example 2.6. What the file structure looks like/usr/local/lib/Smarty-v.e.r/libs/
Smarty.class.php
Smarty_Compiler.class.php
Config_File.class.php
debug.tpl
internals/*.php
plugins/*.php/web/www.example.com/
guestbook/
templates/index.tpl
templates_c/
configs/
cache/
htdocs/index.php

Be sure that you know the location of your web server's document root as a file path. In the following
examples, the document root is /web/www.example.com/guestbook/htdocs/. The Smarty7Installation

directories are only accessed by the Smarty library and never accessed directly by the web browser.
Therefore to avoid any security concerns, it is recommended (but not mandatory) to place these directories
outside of the web server's document root.
You will need as least one file under your document root, and that is the script accessed by the web browser.
We will name our script index.php, and place it in a subdirectory under the document root /htdocs/.
Smarty will need write access (windows users please ignore) to the $compile_dir and $cache_dir
directories (templates_c/ and cache/), so be sure the web server user account can write to them.

NoteThis is usually user “nobody” and group “nobody”. For OS X users, the default is user “www”
and group “www”. If you are using Apache, you can look in your httpd.conf file to see whatuser and group are being used.

Example 2.7. Permissions and making directories writablechown nobody:nobody /web/www.example.com/guestbook/templates_c/chmod 770 /web/www.example.com/guestbook/templates_c/chown nobody:nobody /web/www.example.com/guestbook/cache/chmod 770 /web/www.example.com/guestbook/cache/Notechmod 770 will be fairly tight security, it only allows user “nobody” and group “nobody” read/
write access to the directories. If you would like to open up read access to anyone (mostly foryour own convenience of viewing these files), you can use 775 instead.
We need to create the index.tpl file that Smarty will display. This needs to be located in the$template_dir.

Example 2.8. /web/www.example.com/guestbook/templates/index.tpl{* Smarty *}Hello {$name}, welcome to Smarty!

Technical Note{* Smarty *} is a template comment. It is not required, but it is good practice to start
all your template files with this comment. It makes the file easy to recognize regardless of thefile extension. For example, text editors could recognize the file and turn on special syntax
highlighting.

8Installation

Now lets edit index.php. We'll create an instance of Smarty, assign() a template variable anddisplay() the index.tpl file.

Example 2.9. Editing /web/www.example.com/docs/guestbook/index.php<?php
require_once(SMARTY_DIR . 'Smarty.class.php');$smarty = new Smarty();$smarty->template_dir = '/web/www.example.com/guestbook/templates/';$smarty->compile_dir = '/web/www.example.com/guestbook/templates_c/';$smarty->config_dir= '/web/www.example.com/guestbook/configs/';$smarty->cache_dir= '/web/www.example.com/guestbook/cache/';$smarty->assign('name','Ned');//** un-comment the following line to show the debug console//$smarty->debugging = true;$smarty->display('index.tpl');?>Note
In our example, we are setting absolute paths to all of the Smarty directories. If /web/www.example.com/guestbook/ is within your PHP include_path, then these settings are
not necessary. However, it is more efficient and (from experience) less error-prone to set them toabsolute paths. This ensures that Smarty is getting files from the directories you intended.
Now naviagate to the index.php file with the web browser. You should see "Hello Ned, welcome to
Smarty!"You have completed the basic setup for Smarty!

Extended Setup
This is a continuation of the basic installation, please read that first!
A slightly more flexible way to setup Smarty is to extend the class [http://php.net/ref.classobj] and initialize
your Smarty environment. So instead of repeatedly setting directory paths, assigning the same vars, etc.,
we can do that in one place.
Lets create a new directory /php/includes/guestbook/ and make a new file called setup.php.
In our example environment, /php/includes is in our include_path. Be sure you set this up too,or use absolute file paths.

9

Installation

Example 2.10. /php/includes/guestbook/setup.php<?php// load Smarty libraryrequire('Smarty.class.php');// The setup.php file is a good place to load// required application library files, and you// can do that right here. An example:// require('guestbook/guestbook.lib.php');
class Smarty_GuestBook extends Smarty {function Smarty_GuestBook(){// Class Constructor.
// These automatically get set with each new instance.
$this->Smarty();$this->template_dir = '/web/www.example.com/guestbook/templates/';$this->compile_dir = '/web/www.example.com/guestbook/templates_c/';$this->config_dir= '/web/www.example.com/guestbook/configs/';$this->cache_dir= '/web/www.example.com/guestbook/cache/';$this->caching = true;$this->assign('app_name', 'Guest Book');}}?>Now lets alter the index.php file to use setup.php:

10Installation

Example 2.11. /web/www.example.com/guestbook/htdocs/index.php<?php
require('guestbook/setup.php');$smarty = new Smarty_GuestBook();$smarty->assign('name','Ned');$smarty->display('index.tpl');?>Now you see it is quite simple to bring up an instance of Smarty, just use Smarty_GuestBook() which
automatically initializes everything for our application.

11

Part II. Smarty For Template Designers

Table of Contents
3. Basic Syntax ................................................................................................................ 15
Comments ............................................................................................................... 15
Variables ................................................................................................................. 17
Functions ................................................................................................................. 17
Attributes ................................................................................................................ 18
Embedding Vars in Double Quotes .............................................................................. 19
Math ....................................................................................................................... 20
Escaping Smarty Parsing ............................................................................................ 20
4. Variables ..................................................................................................................... 22
Variables assigned from PHP ...................................................................................... 22
Associative arrays ............................................................................................. 23
Array indexes ................................................................................................... 24
Objects ............................................................................................................ 25
Variables loaded from config files ............................................................................... 26{$smarty} reserved variable ........................................................................................ 28
Request variables .............................................................................................. 28{$smarty.now} ................................................................................................. 29{$smarty.const} ................................................................................................ 29{$smarty.capture} ............................................................................................. 29{$smarty.config} ............................................................................................... 29{$smarty.section}, {$smarty.foreach} ................................................................... 29{$smarty.template} ............................................................................................ 29{$smarty.version} ............................................................................................. 30{$smarty.ldelim}, {$smarty.rdelim} ..................................................................... 30
5. Variable Modifiers ........................................................................................................ 31
capitalize ................................................................................................................. 32
cat .......................................................................................................................... 33
count_characters ....................................................................................................... 34
count_paragraphs ...................................................................................................... 35
count_sentences ........................................................................................................ 36
count_words ............................................................................................................. 37
date_format .............................................................................................................. 38
default .................................................................................................................... 41
escape ..................................................................................................................... 42
indent ..................................................................................................................... 44
lower ...................................................................................................................... 46
nl2br ....................................................................................................................... 46
regex_replace ........................................................................................................... 47
replace .................................................................................................................... 48
spacify .................................................................................................................... 49
string_format ............................................................................................................ 50
strip ........................................................................................................................ 51
strip_tags ................................................................................................................. 52
truncate ................................................................................................................... 53
upper ...................................................................................................................... 55
wordwrap ................................................................................................................ 56
6. Combining Modifiers ..................................................................................................... 59
7. Built-in Functions ......................................................................................................... 60{capture} ................................................................................................................. 60{config_load} ........................................................................................................... 61{foreach},{foreachelse} ............................................................................................. 63

13

Smarty For Template Designers.index ............................................................................................................. 68.iteration .......................................................................................................... 68.first ............................................................................................................... 69.last ................................................................................................................ 69.show .............................................................................................................. 69.total ............................................................................................................... 70{if},{elseif},{else} .................................................................................................... 70{include} ................................................................................................................. 73{include_php} .......................................................................................................... 75{insert} ................................................................................................................... 77{ldelim},{rdelim} ..................................................................................................... 78{literal} ................................................................................................................... 80{php} ...................................................................................................................... 81{section},{sectionelse} ............................................................................................... 82.index ............................................................................................................. 89.index_prev ...................................................................................................... 90.index_next ...................................................................................................... 90.iteration .......................................................................................................... 91.first ............................................................................................................... 93.last ................................................................................................................ 93.rownum .......................................................................................................... 93.loop ............................................................................................................... 93.show .............................................................................................................. 94.total ............................................................................................................... 95{strip} ..................................................................................................................... 95
8. Custom Functions ......................................................................................................... 97{assign} .................................................................................................................. 97{counter} ................................................................................................................. 98{cycle} ................................................................................................................... 99{debug} ................................................................................................................. 101{eval} ................................................................................................................... 101{fetch} .................................................................................................................. 103{html_checkboxes} .................................................................................................. 104{html_image} ......................................................................................................... 107{html_options} ....................................................................................................... 108{html_radios} ......................................................................................................... 112{html_select_date} .................................................................................................. 115{html_select_time} .................................................................................................. 119{html_table} ........................................................................................................... 122{mailto} ................................................................................................................ 125{math} .................................................................................................................. 126{textformat} ........................................................................................................... 129
9. Config Files ................................................................................................................ 132
10. Debugging Console .................................................................................................... 134

14

Chapter 3. Basic Syntax
All Smarty template tags are enclosed within delimiters. By default these are { and }, but they can bechanged.
For the examples in this manual, we will assume that you are using the default delimiters. In Smarty,
all content outside of delimiters is displayed as static content, or unchanged. When Smarty encounters
template tags, it attempts to interpret them, and displays the appropriate output in their place.

Comments
Template comments are surrounded by asterisks, and that is surrounded by the delimiter tags like so:{* this is a comment *}Smarty comments are NOT displayed in the final output of the template, unlike <!-- HTML comments-->. These are useful for making internal notes in the templates which no one will see ;-)15

{* I am a Smarty comment, I don't exist in the compiled output
Basic Syntax<html><head><title>{$title}</title></head>Example 3.1. Comments within a template<body>*}{* another single line smarty comment *}<!-- HTML comment that is sent to the browser -->{* this multiline smartycomment is
not sent to browser*}{*********************************************************
Multi line comment block with credits block@ author:
bg@example.com@ maintainer:
support@example.com@ para:var that sets block style@ css:
the style output**********************************************************}{* The header file with the main logo and stuff{include file='header.tpl'}*}{* Dev note: the $includeFile var is assigned in foo.php script<!-- Displays main content block -->{include file=$includeFile}*}{* this <select> block is redundant *}{*<select name="company">{html_options options=$vals selected=$selected_id}</select>*}<!-- Show header from affiliate is disabled -->{* $affiliate|upper *}{* you cannot nest comments *}{*<select name="company">{* <option value="0">-- none -- </option> *}{html_options options=$vals selected=$selected_id}</select>*}{* cvs tag for a template, below the 36 SHOULD be an american currency. however its converted in cvs.. *}{* &#36;Id: Exp &#36; *}{* $Id: *}</body></html>16

Basic Syntax

Variables
Template variables start with the $dollar sign. They can contain numbers, letters and underscores, much
like a PHP variable [http://php.net/language.variables]. You can reference arrays by index numerically or
non-numerically. Also reference object properties and methods.
Config file variables are an exception to the $dollar syntax and are instead referenced with surrounding#hashmarks#, or via the $smarty.config variable.

Example 3.2. Variables{$foo}<-- displaying a simple variable (non array/object){$foo[4]}<-- display the 5th element of a zero-indexed array{$foo.bar}<-- display the "bar" key value of an array, similar to PHP $foo['bar{$foo.$bar}<-- display variable key value of an array, similar to PHP $foo[$bar]{$foo->bar}<-- display the object property "bar"{$foo->bar()} <-- display the return value of object method "bar"{#foo#}<-- display the config file variable "foo"{$smarty.config.foo} <-- synonym for {#foo#}{$foo[bar]}<-- syntax only valid in a section loop, see {section}{assign var=foo value='baa'}{$foo} <-- displays "baa", see {assign}
Many other combinations are allowed{$foo.bar.baz}{$foo.$bar.$baz}{$foo[4].baz}{$foo[4].$baz}{$foo.bar.baz[4]}{$foo->bar($baz,2,$bar)} <-- passing parameters{"foo"}<-- static values are allowed{* display the server variable "SERVER_NAME" ($_SERVER['SERVER_NAME'])*}{$smarty.server.SERVER_NAME}

Request variables such as $_GET, $_SESSION, etc are available via the reserved $smarty variable.
See also $smarty, config variables {assign} and assign().

Functions
Every Smarty tag either prints a variable or invokes some sort of function. These are processedand displayed by enclosing the function and its attributes within delimiters like so: {funcname
attr1='val1' attr2='val2'}.

17Basic Syntax

Example 3.3. function syntax{config_load file='colors.conf'}{include file='header.tpl'}{insert file='banner_ads.tpl' title='Smarty is cool'}{if $logged_in}
Welcome, <font color="{#fontColor#}">{$name}!</font>{else}
hi, {$name}{/if}{include file='footer.tpl' ad=$random_id}• Both built-in functions and custom functions have the same syntax within templates.
• Built-in functions are the inner workings of Smarty, such as {if}, {section} and {strip}. There
should be no need to change or modify them.
• Custom functions are additional functions implemented via plugins. They can be modified to yourliking, or you can create new ones. {html_options} is an example of a custom function.
See also register_function()

Attributes
Most of the functions take attributes that specify or modify their behavior. Attributes to Smarty functions
are much like HTML attributes. Static values don't have to be enclosed in quotes, but it is recommended
for literal strings. Variables may also be used, and should not be in quotes.
Some attributes require boolean values (TRUE or FALSE). These can be specified as either unquoted
true, on, and yes, or false, off, and no.

18

Basic Syntax

Example 3.4. function attribute syntax{include file='header.tpl'}{include file='header.tpl' attrib_name='attrib value'}{include file=$includeFile}{include file=#includeFile# title='Smarty is cool'}{html_select_date display_days=yes}{mailto address='smarty@example.com'}<select name='company_id'>{html_options options=$companies selected=$company_id}</select>

Embedding Vars in Double Quotes• Smarty will recognize assigned variables embedded in "double quotes" so long as the variablename contains only numbers, letters, under_scores and brackets[]. See naming [http://php.net/
language.variables] for more detail.
• With any other characters, for example a .period or $object>reference, then the variable mustbe surrounded by `backticks`.
• You cannot embed modifiers, they must always be applied outside of quotes.

Example 3.5. Syntax examples{func var="test $foo test"}<-- sees $foo
{func var="test $foo_bar test"}<-- sees $foo_bar{func var="test $foo[0] test"}<-- sees $foo[0]{func var="test $foo[bar] test"} <-- sees $foo[bar]{func var="test $foo.bar test"}<-- sees $foo (not $foo.bar){func var="test `$foo.bar` test"} <-- sees $foo.bar{func var="test `$foo.bar` test"|escape} <-- modifiers outside quotes!

19Basic Syntax

Example 3.6. Practical examples{* will replace $tpl_name with value *}{include file="subdir/$tpl_name.tpl"}{* doesn't replace $tpl_name *}{include file='subdir/$tpl_name.tpl'} <-{* must have backticks as it contains a . *}{cycle values="one,two,`$smarty.config.myval`"}{* same as $module['contact'].'.tpl' in a php script{include file="`$module.contact`.tpl"}{* same as $module[$view].'.tpl' in a php script{include file="`$module.$view`.tpl"}

See also escape.

Math
Math can be applied directly to variable values.

Example 3.7. math examples{$foo+1}{$foo*$bar}{* some more complicated examples *}{$foo->bar-$bar[1]*$baz->foo->bar()-3*7}{if ($foo+$bar.test%$baz*134232+10+$b+10)}{$foo|truncate:"`$fooTruncCount/$barTruncFactor-1`"}{assign var="foo" value="`$foo+$bar`"}See also the {math} function for complex equations and {eval}.

Escaping Smarty Parsing
It is sometimes desirable or even necessary to have Smarty ignore sections it would otherwise parse. A
classic example is embedding Javascript or CSS code in a template. The problem arises as those languages
use the { and } characters which are also the default delimiters for Smarty.

20

Basic Syntax

The simplest thing is to avoid the situation altogether by separating your Javascript and CSS code into
their own files and then using standard HTML methods to access them.
Including literal content is possible using {literal}..{/literal} blocks. Similar to HTML entity
usage, you can use {ldelim},{rdelim} or {$smarty.ldelim} to display the current delimiters.
It is often convenient to simply change Smarty's $left_delimiter and $right_delimiter.

Example 3.8. changing delimiters example<?php$smarty->left_delimiter = '<!--{';$smarty->right_delimiter = '}-->';$smarty->assign('foo', 'bar');$smarty->assign('name', 'Albert');$smarty->display('example.tpl');?>Where the template is:

Welcome <!--{$name}--> to Smarty<script language="javascript">
var foo = <!--{$foo}-->;
function dosomething() {alert("foo is " + foo);}
dosomething();</script>21

Chapter 4. Variables
Smarty has several different types of variables. The type of the variable depends on what symbol it isprefixed or enclosed within.
Variables in Smarty can be either displayed directly or used as arguments for functions, attributes andmodifiers, inside conditional expressions, etc. To print a variable, simply enclose it in the delimiters sothat it is the only thing contained between them.

Example 4.1. Example variables{$Name}{$product.part_no} <b>{$product.description}</b>{$Contacts[row].Phone}<body bgcolor="{#bgcolor#}">Top Tip
An easy way to examine Smarty variables is with the debugging console.

Variables assigned from PHP
Variables that are assigned from PHP are referenced by preceding them with a dollar sign $ (like php).
Variables assigned from within a template with the {assign} function are also displayed this way.

22

Variables

Example 4.2. Assigned variables
php script<?php$smarty = new Smarty();$smarty->assign('firstname', 'Doug');$smarty->assign('lastname', 'Evans');$smarty->assign('meetingPlace', 'New York');$smarty->display('index.tpl');?>where the content of index.tpl is:

Hello {$firstname} {$lastname}, glad to see you can make it.
<br />{* this will not work as $variables are case sensitive *}This weeks meeting is in {$meetingplace}.
{* this will work *}This weeks meeting is in {$meetingPlace}.

This above would output:

Hello Doug Evans, glad to see you can make it.
<br />
This weeks meeting is in .
This weeks meeting is in New York.

Associative arrays
You can also reference associative array variables that are assigned from PHP by specifying the key after
the '.' (period) symbol.

23

Variables

Example 4.3. Accessing associative array variables<?php$smarty->assign('Contacts',
array('fax' => '555-222-9876','email' => 'zaphod@slartibartfast.example.com','phone' => array('home' => '555-444-3333','cell' => '555-111-1234')));$smarty->display('index.tpl');?>where the content of index.tpl is:{$Contacts.fax}<br />{$Contacts.email}<br />{* you can print arrays of arrays as well *}{$Contacts.phone.home}<br />{$Contacts.phone.cell}<br />this will output:

555-222-9876<br />zaphod@slartibartfast.example.com<br />555-444-3333<br />555-111-1234<br />Array indexes
You can reference arrays by their index, much like native PHP syntax.

24

Variables

Example 4.4. Accessing arrays by index<?php$smarty->assign('Contacts', array('555-222-9876','zaphod@slartibartfast.example.com',array('555-444-3333','555-111-1234')));$smarty->display('index.tpl');?>where index.tpl is:{$Contacts[0]}<br />{$Contacts[1]}<br />{* you can print arrays of arrays as well *}{$Contacts[2][0]}<br />{$Contacts[2][1]}<br />This will output:

555-222-9876<br />zaphod@slartibartfast.example.com<br />555-444-3333<br />555-111-1234<br />Objects
Properties of objects assigned from PHP can be referenced by specifying the property name after the > symbol.

25

Variables

Example 4.5. Accessing object properties

name: {$person->name}<br />email: {$person->email}<br />this will output:

name: Zaphod Beeblebrox<br />email: zaphod@slartibartfast.example.com<br />Variables loaded from config files
Variables that are loaded from the config files are referenced by enclosing them within #hash marks#,
or with the smarty variable $smarty.config. The later syntax is useful for embedding into quoted
attribute values.

26

Variables

Exampleconfig- foo.conf:
Example4.6.file
configvariables
pageTitle = "This is mine"
bodyBgColor = '#eeeeee'tableBorderSize = 3
tableBgColor = "#bbbbbb"
rowBgColor = "#cccccc"
A template demonstrating the #hash# method:{config_load file='foo.conf'}<html><title>{#pageTitle#}</title><body bgcolor="{#bodyBgColor#}"><table border="{#tableBorderSize#}" bgcolor="{#tableBgColor#}"><tr bgcolor="{#rowBgColor#}"><td>First</td><td>Last</td><td>Address</td></tr></table></body></html>A template demonstrating the $smarty.config method:{config_load file='foo.conf'}<html><title>{$smarty.config.pageTitle}</title><body bgcolor="{$smarty.config.bodyBgColor}"><table border="{$smarty.config.tableBorderSize}" bgcolor="{$smarty.config.tableBgCo<tr bgcolor="{$smarty.config.rowBgColor}"><td>First</td><td>Last</td><td>Address</td></tr></table></body></html>Both examples would output:<html><title>This is mine</title><body bgcolor="#eeeeee"><table border="3" bgcolor="#bbbbbb"><tr bgcolor="#cccccc"><td>First</td><td>Last</td><td>Address</td></tr></table></body></html>27

Variables

Config file variables cannot be used until after they are loaded in from a config file. This procedure is
explained later in this document under {config_load}.
See also variables and $smarty reserved variables{$smarty} reserved variable
The PHP reserved {$smarty} variable can be used to access several enviroment and request variables.
The full list of them follows.

Request variables
The request variables[http://php.net/reserved.variables] such as $_GET, $_POST,$_COOKIE, $_SERVER, $_ENV and $_SESSION (see$request_vars_order and$request_use_auto_globals) can be accessed as demonstrated in the examples below:

Example 4.7. Displaying request variables{* display value of page from URL ($_GET) http://www.example.com/index.php?page=foo{$smarty.get.page}{* display the variable "page" from a form ($_POST['page']) *}{$smarty.post.page}{* display the value of the cookie "username" ($_COOKIE['username']) *}{$smarty.cookies.username}{* display the server variable "SERVER_NAME" ($_SERVER['SERVER_NAME'])*}{$smarty.server.SERVER_NAME}{* display the system environment variable "PATH" *}{$smarty.env.PATH}{* display the php session variable "id" ($_SESSION['id']) *}{$smarty.session.id}{* display the variable "username" from merged get/post/cookies/server/env *}{$smarty.request.username}Note
For historical reasons {$SCRIPT_NAME} can be accessed directly,{$smarty.server.SCRIPT_NAME} is the proposed way to access this value.

although<a href="{$SCRIPT_NAME}?page=smarty">click me</a><a href="{$smarty.server.SCRIPT_NAME}?page=smarty">click me</a>28

Variables{$smarty.now}
The current timestamp [http://php.net/function.time] can be accessed with {$smarty.now}. The value
reflects the number of seconds passed since the so-called Epoch on January 1, 1970, and can be passed
directly to the date_format modifier for display. Note that time() [http://php.net/function.time] iscalled on each invocation; eg a script that takes three seconds to execute with a call to $smarty.now atstart and end will show the three second difference.

{* use the date_format modifier to show current date and time *}{$smarty.now|date_format:'%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'}{$smarty.const}
You can access PHP constant values directly. See also smarty constants.

<?php// the constant defined in php
define('MY_CONST_VAL','CHERRIES');?>
Output the constant in a template with{$smarty.const.MY_CONST_VAL}{$smarty.capture}
Template output captured via the built-in {capture}..{/capture} function can be accessed usingthe {$smarty.capture} variable. See the {capture} page for more information.

{$smarty.config}{$smarty.config} variable can be used to refer to loaded config variables.
{$smarty.config.foo} is a synonym for {#foo#}. See the {config_load} page for more info.

{$smarty.section}, {$smarty.foreach}
The {$smarty.section} and {$smarty.foreach} variables can be used to refer to {section}and {foreach} loop properties respectfully. These have some very useful values such as .first,.index, etc.

{$smarty.template}
Returns the name of the current template being processed. The following example shows thecontainer.tpl and the included banner.tpl with {$smarty.template} within both.

29

Variables<b>Main container is {$smarty.template}</b>{include file='banner.tpl'}

will output<b>Main page is container.tpl</b>banner.tpl{$smarty.version}
Returns the version of Smarty the template was compiled with.

<div id="footer">Powered by Smarty {$smarty.version}</div>{$smarty.ldelim}, {$smarty.rdelim}
These variables are used for printing the left-delimiter and right-delimiter value literally, the same as{ldelim},{rdelim}.
See also assigned variables and config variables

30

Chapter 5. Variable Modifiers
Variable modifiers can be applied to variables, custom functions or strings. To apply a modifier, specify
the value followed by a | (pipe) and the modifier name. A modifier may accept additional parameters that
affect its behavior. These parameters follow the modifer name and are separated by a : (colon). Also, all
php-functions can be used as modifiers implicitly (more below) and modifiers can be combined. .

Example 5.1. Modifier examples{* apply modifier to a variable *}{$title|upper}{* modifier with parameters *}{$title|truncate:40:'...'}{* apply modifier to a function parameter *}{html_table loop=$myvar|upper}{* with parameters *}{html_table loop=$myvar|truncate:40:'...'}{* apply modifier to literal string *}{'foobar'|upper}{* using date_format to format the current date *}{$smarty.now|date_format:"%Y/%m/%d"}{* apply modifier to a custom function *}{mailto|upper address='smarty@example.com'}{* using php's str_repeat *}{'='|str_repeat:80}{* php's count *}{$myArray|@count}{* php's shuffle on servers's ip *}{$smarty.server.SERVER_ADDR|shuffle}(* this will uppercase and truncate the whole array *}<select name="name_id">{html_options output=$myArray|upper|truncate:20}</select>• If you apply a modifier to an array variable instead of a single value variable, the modifier will be applied
to every value in that array. If you really want the modifier to work on an entire array as a value, youmust prepend the modifier name with a @ symbol.

31

Variable Modifiers

Example{$articleTitle|@count} - will print out the number of elements in the$articleTitle array using the php count() [http://php.net/count] function as amodifier.
• Modifiers are autoloaded from the $plugins_dir or can be registered explicitly with theregister_modifier() function. The later is useful for sharing a function between php scripts andsmarty templates.
• All php-functions can be used as modifiers implicitly, as demonstrated in the example above. However,using php-functions as modifiers has two little pitfalls:• First - sometimes the order of the function-parameters is not the desirable one. Formatting $foo
with {"%2.f"|sprintf:$foo} actually works, but asks for the more intuitive, like {$foo|
string_format:"%2.f"} that is provided by the Smarty distribution.
• Secondly - if $security is enabled, all php-functions that are to be used as modifiers have to be
declared trusted in the MODIFIER_FUNCS element of the $security_settings array.
See also register_modifier(), combining modifiers. and extending smarty with plugins

capitalize
This is used to capitalize the first letter of all words in a variable. This is similar to the PHP ucwords()[http://php.net/ucwords] function.

Parameter
PositionType

Required

Default

Description

1boolean

No

FALSE

This
determines
whether or notwords with digits
will be uppercased32

Variable Modifiers

Example 5.2. capitalize<?php$smarty->assign('articleTitle', 'next x-men film, x3, delayed.');?>Where the template is:{$articleTitle}{$articleTitle|capitalize}{$articleTitle|capitalize:true}

Will output:

next x-men film, x3, delayed.
Next X-Men Film, x3, Delayed.
Next X-Men Film, X3, Delayed.

See also lower and upper

catThis value is concatenated to the given variable.

Parameter
PositionType

Required

Default

Description

1

string

No

empty

This
value
to
catenate to thegiven variable.

33

Variable Modifiers

Example 5.3. cat<?php$smarty->assign('articleTitle', "Psychics predict world didn't end");?>

Where template is:{$articleTitle|cat:' yesterday.'}

Will output:

Psychics predict world didn't end yesterday.

count_characters
This is used to count the number of characters in a variable.

Parameter
PositionType

Required

Default

Description

1boolean

No

FALSE

This
determines
whether or not toinclude whitespacecharacters in the
count.

34

Variable Modifiers

Example 5.4. count_characters<?php$smarty->assign('articleTitle', 'Cold Wave Linked to Temperatures.');?>

Where template is:{$articleTitle}{$articleTitle|count_characters}{$articleTitle|count_characters:true}

Will output:

Cold Wave Linked to Temperatures.
29
33

See also count_words, count_sentences and count_paragraphs.

count_paragraphs
This is used to count the number of paragraphs in a variable.

35

Variable Modifiers

Example 5.5. count_paragraphs<?php$smarty->assign('articleTitle',"War Dims Hope for Peace. Child's Death Ruins Couple's Holiday.\n\
Man is Fatally Slain. Death Causes Loneliness, Feeling of Isolatio);?>

Where template is:{$articleTitle}{$articleTitle|count_paragraphs}

Will output:

War Dims Hope for Peace. Child's Death Ruins Couple's Holiday.
Man is Fatally Slain. Death Causes Loneliness, Feeling of Isolation.
2

See also count_characters, count_sentences and count_words.

count_sentences
This is used to count the number of sentences in a variable.

36

Variable Modifiers

Example 5.6. count_sentences<?php$smarty->assign('articleTitle','Two Soviet Ships Collide - One Dies.
Enraged Cow Injures Farmer with Axe.');?>

Where template is:{$articleTitle}{$articleTitle|count_sentences}

Will output:

Two Soviet Ships Collide - One Dies. Enraged Cow Injures Farmer with Axe.
2

See also count_characters, count_paragraphs and count_words.

count_words
This is used to count the number of words in a variable.

37

Variable Modifiers

Example 5.7. count_words<?php$smarty->assign('articleTitle', 'Dealers Will Hear Car Talk at Noon.');?>Where template is:{$articleTitle}{$articleTitle|count_words}

This will output:

Dealers Will Hear Car Talk at Noon.
7

See also count_characters, count_paragraphs and count_sentences.

date_format
This formats a date and time into the given strftime() [http://php.net/strftime] format. Dates canbe passed to Smarty as unix timestamps [http://php.net/function.time], mysql timestamps or any string
made up of month day year, parsable by php's strtotime() [http://php.net/strtotime]. Designers canthen use date_format to have complete control of the formatting of the date. If the date passed todate_format is empty and a second parameter is passed, that will be used as the date to format.
Parameter
PositionType

Required

Default

Description

1

stringNo%b %e, %YThis is the format
for the outputted
date.

2

stringNo

n/aThis is the default
date if the input isempty.

Note
Since Smarty-2.6.10 numeric values passed to date_format are always (except for mysql
timestamps, see below) interpreted as a unix timestamp.

38

Variable Modifiers

Before Smarty-2.6.10 numeric strings that where also parsable by strtotime() inphp (like YYYYMMDD) where sometimes (depending on the underlying implementation of
strtotime()) interpreted as date strings and NOT as timestamps.
The only exception are mysql timestamps: They are also numeric only and 14 characters long
(YYYYMMDDHHMMSS), mysql timestamps have precedence over unix timestamps.

Programmers note
date_format is essentially a wrapper to PHP's strftime() [http://php.net/strftime]function. You may have more or less conversion specifiers available depending on your system's
strftime() [http://php.net/strftime] function where PHP was compiled. Check your system's
manpage for a full list of valid specifiers. However, a few of the specifiers are emulated on
Windows. These are: %D, %e, %h, %l, %n, %r, %R, %t, %T.

Example 5.8. date_format<?php$config['date'] = '%I:%M %p';$config['time'] = '%H:%M:%S';$smarty->assign('config', $config);$smarty->assign('yesterday', strtotime('-1 day'));?>This template uses $smarty.now to get the current time:{$smarty.now|date_format}{$smarty.now|date_format:"%D"}{$smarty.now|date_format:$config.date}{$yesterday|date_format}{$yesterday|date_format:"%A, %B %e, %Y"}{$yesterday|date_format:$config.time}

This above will output:

Jan 1, 2022
01/01/22
02:33 pm
Dec 31, 2021
Monday, December 1, 2021
14:33:00

39

Variable Modifiers

date_format conversion specifiers:• %a - abbreviated weekday name according to the current locale• %A - full weekday name according to the current locale• %b - abbreviated month name according to the current locale• %B - full month name according to the current locale• %c - preferred date and time representation for the current locale• %C - century number (the year divided by 100 and truncated to an integer, range 00 to 99)• %d - day of the month as a decimal number (range 01 to 31)• %D - same as %m/%d/%y• %e - day of the month as a decimal number, a single digit is preceded by a space (range 1 to 31)• %g - Week-based year within century [00,99]• %G - Week-based year, including the century [0000,9999]• %h - same as %b• %H - hour as a decimal number using a 24-hour clock (range 00 to 23)• %I - hour as a decimal number using a 12-hour clock (range 01 to 12)• %j - day of the year as a decimal number (range 001 to 366)
• %k - Hour (24-hour clock) single digits are preceded by a blank. (range 0 to 23)• %l - hour as a decimal number using a 12-hour clock, single digits preceeded by a space (range 1 to 12)• %m - month as a decimal number (range 01 to 12)• %M - minute as a decimal number• %n - newline character• %p - either `am' or `pm' according to the given time value, or the corresponding strings for the current
locale• %r - time in a.m. and p.m. notation• %R - time in 24 hour notation• %S - second as a decimal number• %t - tab character• %T - current time, equal to %H:%M:%S40

Variable Modifiers• %u - weekday as a decimal number [1,7], with 1 representing Monday• %U - week number of the current year as a decimal number, starting with the first Sunday as the firstday of the first week
• %V - The ISO 8601:1988 week number of the current year as a decimal number, range 01 to 53, whereweek 1 is the first week that has at least 4 days in the current year, and with Monday as the first dayof the week.
• %w - day of the week as a decimal, Sunday being 0• %W - week number of the current year as a decimal number, starting with the first Monday as the firstday of the first week
• %x - preferred date representation for the current locale without the time
• %X - preferred time representation for the current locale without the date
• %y - year as a decimal number without a century (range 00 to 99)• %Y - year as a decimal number including the century• %Z - time zone or name or abbreviation• %% - a literal `%' character
See also $smarty.now, strftime() [http://php.net/strftime], {html_select_date} and thedate tips page.

default
This is used to set a default value for a variable. If the variable is unset or an empty string, the given default
value is printed instead. Default takes the one argument.

NoteWith error_reporting(E_ALL) [http://php.net/error_reporting], undeclared variables
will always throw an error within the template. This function is useful for replacing null or zero
length strings.

Parameter
PositionType

Required

Default

Description

1

stringNo

empty

This is the default
value to output
if the variable isempty.

41

Variable Modifiers

Example 5.9. default<?php$smarty->assign('articleTitle', 'Dealers Will Hear Car Talk at Noon.');$smarty->assign('email', '');?>

Where template is:{$articleTitle|default:'no title'}{$myTitle|default:'no title'}{$email|default:'No email address available'}Will output:

Dealers Will Hear Car Talk at Noon.
no title
No email address available

See also the default variable handling and the blank variable handling pages.

escapeescape is used to encode or escape a variable to for example html, url, single quotes, hex,
hexentity, javascript and mail. By default its html.
Parameter
PositionType

Required

Possible
ValuesDefault

Description

1

stringNo

html,
htmlall,url,
urlpathinfo,
quotes, hex,
hexentity,
javascript,
mail

html

This is theescape format touse.

2

stringNo

ISO-8859-1, ISO-8859-1 The character
UTF-8,
set
encoding
and any
passedtocharacter set

42

Variable Modifiers

Parameter
PositionType

Required

Possible
Valuessupported byhtmlentities()[http://php.net/
htmlentities]

Default

Description
htmlentities() et.
al.

Example 5.10. escape<?php$smarty->assign('articleTitle',"'Stiff Opposition Expected to Casketless Funeral Plan'");$smarty->assign('EmailAddress','smarty@example.com');?>

These are example escape template lines followed by the output{$articleTitle}'Stiff Opposition Expected to Casketless Funeral Plan'{$articleTitle|escape}&#039;Stiff Opposition Expected to Casketless Funeral Plan&#039;{$articleTitle|escape:'html'}{* escapes & " ' < > *}&#039;Stiff Opposition Expected to Casketless Funeral Plan&#039;{$articleTitle|escape:'htmlall'} {* escapes ALL html entities *}&#039;Stiff Opposition Expected to Casketless Funeral Plan&#039;<a href="?title={$articleTitle|escape:'url'}">click here</a><ahref="?title=%27Stiff%20Opposition%20Expected%20to%20Casketless%20Funeral%20Plan%27{$articleTitle|escape:'quotes'}\'Stiff Opposition Expected to Casketless Funeral Plan\'<a href="mailto:{$EmailAddress|escape:"hex"}">{$EmailAddress|escape:"hexentity"}</a{$EmailAddress|escape:'mail'}{* this converts to email to text *}<a href="mailto:%62%6f%..snip..%65%74">&#x62;&#x6f;&#x62..snip..&#x65;&#x74;</a>{'mail@example.com'|escape:'mail'}smarty [AT] example [DOT] com

43

Variable Modifiers

Example 5.11. Other examples
PHP functions can be used as modifiers, $security permitting.

{* the "rewind" paramater registers the current location *}<a href="{$SCRIPT_NAME}?page=foo&rewind={$smarty.server.REQUEST_URI|urlencode}">cli

This snippet is useful for emails, but see also {mailto}{* email address mangled *}<a href="mailto:{$EmailAddress|escape:'hex'}">{$EmailAddress|escape:'mail'}</a>See also escaping smarty parsing, {mailto} and the obfuscating email addresses page.

indentThis indents a string on each line, default is 4. As an optional parameter, you can specify the number ofcharacters to indent. As an optional second parameter, you can specify the character to use to indent witheg use "\t" for a tab.

Parameter
PositionType

Required

Default1

integer

No

4

This
determineshow
manycharacters to indent
to.

2

stringNo(one space)

This is the character
used to indent with.

44

Description

Variable Modifiers

Example 5.12. indent<?php$smarty->assign('articleTitle','NJ judge to rule on nude beach.
Sun or rain expected today, dark tonight.
Statistics show that teen pregnancy drops off significantly after 25.');?>

Where template is:{$articleTitle}{$articleTitle|indent}{$articleTitle|indent:10}{$articleTitle|indent:1:"\t"}Will output:

NJ judge to rule on nude beach.
Sun or rain expected today, dark tonight.
Statistics show that teen pregnancy drops off significantly after 25.
NJ judge to rule on nude beach.
Sun or rain expected today, dark tonight.
Statistics show that teen pregnancy drops off significantly after 25.
NJ judge to rule on nude beach.
Sun or rain expected today, dark tonight.
Statistics show that teen pregnancy drops off significantly after 25.
NJ judge to rule on nude beach.
Sun or rain expected today, dark tonight.
Statistics show that teen pregnancy drops off significantly after 25.

See also strip, wordwrap and spacify.

45

Variable Modifiers

lowerThis is used to lowercase a variable. This is equivalent to the PHP strtolower() [http://php.net/
strtolower] function.

Example 5.13. lower<?php$smarty->assign('articleTitle', 'Two Convicts Evade Noose, Jury Hung.');?>Where template is:{$articleTitle}{$articleTitle|lower}

This will output:

Two Convicts Evade Noose, Jury Hung.
two convicts evade noose, jury hung.

See also upper and capitalize.

nl2brAll "\n" line breaks will be converted to html <br /> tags in the given variable. This is equivalent to
the PHP's nl2br() [http://php.net/nl2br] function.

46

Variable Modifiers

Example 5.14. nl2br<?php$smarty->assign('articleTitle',"Sun or rain expected\ntoday, dark tonight");?>

Where the template is:{$articleTitle|nl2br}

Will output:

Sun or rain expected<br />today, dark tonight

See also word_wrap, count_paragraphs and count_sentences.

regex_replace
A regular expression search and replace on a variable. Use the preg_replace() [http://php.net/
preg_replace] syntax from the PHP manual.

Parameter
PositionType

Required

Default1

stringYes

n/aThis is the regularexpression to be
replaced.

2stringYes

n/aThis is the string oftext to replace with.

47

Description

Variable Modifiers

Example 5.15. regex_replace<?php$smarty->assign('articleTitle', "Infertility unlikely to\nbe passed on, experts say?>

Where template is:{* replace each carriage return, tab and new line with a space *}{$articleTitle}{$articleTitle|regex_replace:"/[\r\t\n]/":" "}Will output:

Infertility unlikely to
be passed on, experts say.
Infertility unlikely to be passed on, experts say.

See also replace and escape.

replace
A simple search and replace on a variable. This is equivalent to the PHP's str_replace() [http://
php.net/str_replace] function.

Parameter
PositionType

Required

Default1

stringYes

n/aThis is the string oftext to be replaced.

2

stringYes

n/aThis is the string oftext to replace with.

48

Description

Variable Modifiers

Example 5.16. replace<?php$smarty->assign('articleTitle', "Child's Stool Great for Use in Garden.");?>Where template is:{$articleTitle}{$articleTitle|replace:'Garden':'Vineyard'}{$articleTitle|replace:' ':''}Will output:

Child's Stool Great for Use in Garden.
Child's Stool Great for Use in Vineyard.
Child's
Stool
Great
for
Use
in

Garden.

See also regex_replace and escape.

spacifyspacify is a way to insert a space between every character of a variable. You can optionally pass a
different character or string to insert.

Parameter
PositionType

Required

Default

Description

1

stringNo

one space

This what gets
inserted between
each character ofthe variable.

49

Variable Modifiers

Example 5.17. spacify<?php$smarty->assign('articleTitle', 'Something Went Wrong in Jet Crash, Experts Say.');?>Where template is:{$articleTitle}{$articleTitle|spacify}{$articleTitle|spacify:"^^"}

Will output:

Something Went Wrong in Jet Crash, Experts Say.
S o m e t h i n g
W .... snip .... s h ,E x p e r t s
S a y .
S^^o^^m^^e^^t^^h^^i^^n^^g^^ .... snip .... ^^e^^r^^t^^s^^ ^^S^^a^^y^^.

See also wordwrap and nl2br.

string_format
This is a way to format strings, such as decimal numbers and such. Use the syntax for sprintf() [http://
php.net/sprintf] for the formatting.

Parameter
PositionType

Required

Default1

string

Yes

n/a

50

Description
This is what format
to use. (sprintf)

Variable Modifiers

Example 5.18. string_format<?php$smarty->assign('number', 23.5787446);?>

Where template is:{$number}{$number|string_format:"%.2f"}{$number|string_format:"%d"}Will output:

23.5787446
23.58
24

See also date_format.

stripThis replaces all repeated spaces, newlines and tabs with a single space, or with the supplied string.

Note
If you want to strip blocks of template text, use the built-in {strip} function.

51

Variable Modifiers

Example 5.19. strip<?php$smarty->assign('articleTitle', "Grandmother of\neight makes\t$smarty->display('index.tpl');?>hole in one.");Where template is:{$articleTitle}{$articleTitle|strip}{$articleTitle|strip:'&nbsp;'}Will output:

Grandmother ofeight makes
hole in one.
Grandmother of eight makes hole in one.
Grandmother&nbsp;of&nbsp;eight&nbsp;makes&nbsp;hole&nbsp;in&nbsp;one.

See also {strip} and truncate.

strip_tags
This strips out markup tags, basically anything between < and >.

Parameter
PositionType

Required

Default

Description

1

bool

No

TRUE

This
determines
whether the tags are
replaced by ' ' or ''52

Variable Modifiers

Example 5.20. strip_tags<?php$smarty->assign('articleTitle',"Blind Woman Gets <font face=\"helvetica\">New
Kidney</font> from Dad she Hasn't Seen in <b>years</b>.");?>

Where template is:{$articleTitle}{$articleTitle|strip_tags} {* same as {$articleTitle|strip_tags:true} *}{$articleTitle|strip_tags:false}

Will output:

Blind Woman Gets <font face="helvetica">New Kidney</font> from Dad she Hasn't Seen
Blind Woman Gets New Kidney from Dad she Hasn't Seen in years .
Blind Woman Gets New Kidney from Dad she Hasn't Seen in years.

See also replace and regex_replace.

truncate
This truncates a variable to a character length, the default is 80. As an optional second parameter, you
can specify a string of text to display at the end if the variable was truncated. The characters in the string
are included with the original truncation length. By default, truncate will attempt to cut off at a wordboundary. If you want to cut off at the exact character length, pass the optional third parameter of TRUE.
Parameter
PositionType

Required

Default1

integer

No

80

This
determineshow
manycharacterstotruncate to.

2string

No...

This is a text stringthat replaces thetruncated text. Its
length is included

53

Description

Variable Modifiers

Parameter
PositionType

Required

Default

Description
in the truncation
length setting.

3boolean

No

FALSE

This
determines
whether or not
to truncate at aword boundary with
FALSE, or at theexact character with
TRUE.

4

boolean

No

FALSE

This
determines
whetherthetruncation happensat the end of
the string with
FALSE, or in the
middle of the stringwith TRUE. Notethat if this setting
is TRUE, thenword
boundaries
are ignored.

54

Variable Modifiers

Example 5.21. truncate<?php$smarty->assign('articleTitle', 'Two Sisters Reunite after Eighteen Years at Checko?>

where template is:{$articleTitle}{$articleTitle|truncate}{$articleTitle|truncate:30}{$articleTitle|truncate:30:""}{$articleTitle|truncate:30:"---"}{$articleTitle|truncate:30:"":true}{$articleTitle|truncate:30:"...":true}{$articleTitle|truncate:30:'..':true:true}

This will output:

Two Sisters Reunite after Eighteen Years at Checkout Counter.
Two Sisters Reunite after Eighteen Years at Checkout Counter.
Two Sisters Reunite after...
Two Sisters Reunite after
Two Sisters Reunite after--Two Sisters Reunite after Eigh
Two Sisters Reunite after E...
Two Sisters Re..ckout Counter.

upperThis is used to uppercase a variable. This is equivalent to the PHP strtoupper() [http://php.net/
strtoupper] function.

55

Variable Modifiers

Example 5.22. upper<?php$smarty->assign('articleTitle', "If Strike isn't Settled Quickly it may Last a Whil?>

Where template is:{$articleTitle}{$articleTitle|upper}

Will output:

If Strike isn't Settled Quickly it may Last a While.
IF STRIKE ISN'T SETTLED QUICKLY IT MAY LAST A WHILE.

See also lower and capitalize.

wordwrap
Wraps a string to a column width, the default is 80. As an optional second parameter, you can specify astring of text to wrap the text to the next line, the default is a carriage return "\n". By default, wordwrap
will attempt to wrap at a word boundary. If you want to cut off at the exact character length, pass theoptional third parameter as TRUE. This is equivalent to the PHP wordwrap() [http://php.net/wordwrap]
function.
Parameter
PositionType

Required

Default1

integer

No

80

This
determines
how many columns
to wrap to.

2stringNo\nThis is the stringused to wrap words
with.

3

boolean

No

FALSE

This
determines
whether or not to
wrap at a wordboundary (FALSE),
or at the exact
character (TRUE).

56

Description

Variable Modifiers

Example 5.23. wordwrap<?php$smarty->assign('articleTitle',"Blind woman gets new kidney from dad she hasn't seen in years.");?>

Where template is{$articleTitle}{$articleTitle|wordwrap:30}{$articleTitle|wordwrap:20}{$articleTitle|wordwrap:30:"<br />\n"}{$articleTitle|wordwrap:26:"\n":true}

Will output:

Blind woman gets new kidney from dad she hasn't seen in years.
Blind woman gets new kidneyfrom dad she hasn't seen inyears.
Blind woman gets new
kidney from dad she
hasn't seen inyears.
Blind woman gets new kidney<br />from dad she hasn't seen in<br />years.
Blind woman gets new kidn
ey from dad she hasn't seen in years.

57

Variable Modifiers

See also nl2br and {textformat}.

58

Chapter 6. Combining Modifiers
You can apply any number of modifiers to a variable. They will be applied in the order they are combined,from left to right. They must be separated with a | (pipe) character.

Example 6.1. combining modifiers<?php$smarty->assign('articleTitle', 'Smokers are Productive, but Death Cuts Efficiency.
?>

where template is:{$articleTitle}{$articleTitle|upper|spacify}{$articleTitle|lower|spacify|truncate}{$articleTitle|lower|truncate:30|spacify}{$articleTitle|lower|spacify|truncate:30:". . ."}The above example will output:

Smokers are Productive, but Death Cuts Efficiency.
S M O K E R S
A R ....snip.... H
C U T SE F F I C I E N C Y .
s m o k e r s
a r ....snip.... b u t
d e a t hc u t s...
s m o k e r s
a r ep r o d u c t i v e ,b u t . . .
s m o k e r s
a r ep. . .

59

Chapter 7. Built-in Functions
Smarty comes with several built-in functions. These built-in functions are the integral part of the smarty
template engine. You cannot create your own custom functions with the same name; and you should notneed to modify the built-in functions.
A few of these functions have an assign attribute which collects the result the function to a named
template variable instead of being output; much like the {assign} function.

{capture}{capture} is used to collect the output of the template between the tags into a variable instead ofdisplaying it. Any content between {capture name='foo'} and {/capture} is collected into thevariable specified in the name attribute.
The captured content can be used in the template from the variable $smarty.capture.foo where“foo” is the value passed in the name attribute. If you do not supply the name attribute, then “default”
will be used as the name ie $smarty.capture.default.
{capture}'s can be nested.

Attribute NameType

Required

Default

Description

namestringnodefault

The name of thecaptured block

assignstringNon/a

The variable namewhere to assign thecaptured output to

CautionBe careful when capturing {insert} output. If you have $caching enabled and you have{insert} commands that you expect to run within cached content, do not capture this content.

Example 7.1. {capture} with the name attribute{* we don't want to print a div tag unless content is displayed *}{capture name=banner}{include file='get_banner.tpl'}{/capture}{if $smarty.capture.banner ne ''}<div id="banner">{$smarty.capture.banner}</div>
{/if}

60

Built-in Functions

Example 7.2. {capture} into a template variableThis example also demonstrates the upper modifier{capture name=some_content assign=addrText}
The server is {$smarty.server.SERVER_NAME|upper} at {$smarty.server.SERVER_ADDR}<br
Your ip is {$smarty.server.REMOTE_ADDR}.
{/capture}{$addrText}

See also $smarty.capture, {eval}, {fetch}, fetch() and {assign}.

{config_load}{config_load} is used for loading config #variables# from a configuration file into the template.
Attribute NameType

Required

Default

filestringYesn/a

The name of theconfigfile
toincludesectionstringNon/a

The name of thesection to load

scopestringnolocal

How the scope ofthe loaded variables
are treated, which
must
be
one
of local, parent
or global. local
means
variables
are loaded into
the local templatecontext.
parentmeans variables areloaded into both thelocal context andthe parent templatethat called it. global
means variables areavailable to all
templates.

globalbooleanNo

No

Whether or not
variables are visible
totheparenttemplate,same
asscope=parent.
NOTE:
This
attributeisdeprecated by thescope attribute, but

61

Description

Built-in Functions

Attribute NameType

Required

Default

Description
still supported. If
scope is supplied,
this
value
is
ignored.

Example 7.3. {config_load}
The example.conf file.

#this is config file comment# global variables
pageTitle = "Main Menu"
bodyBgColor = #000000
tableBgColor = #000000
rowBgColor = #00ff00#customer variables section[Customer]
pageTitle = "Customer Info"and the template{config_load file="example.conf"}<html><title>{#pageTitle#|default:"No title"}</title><body bgcolor="{#bodyBgColor#}"><table border="{#tableBorderSize#}" bgcolor="{#tableBgColor#}"><tr bgcolor="{#rowBgColor#}"><td>First</td><td>Last</td><td>Address</td></tr></table></body></html>Config Files may also contain sections. You can load variables from within a section with the added
attribute section. Note that global config variables are always loaded along with section variables, andsame-named section variables overwrite the globals.

Note
Config file sections and the built-in template function called {section} have nothing to dowith each other, they just happen to share a common naming convention.

62

Built-in Functions

Example 7.4. function {config_load} with section{config_load file='example.conf' section='Customer'}<html><title>{#pageTitle#}</title><body bgcolor="{#bodyBgColor#}"><table border="{#tableBorderSize#}" bgcolor="{#tableBgColor#}"><tr bgcolor="{#rowBgColor#}"><td>First</td><td>Last</td><td>Address</td></tr></table></body></html>See $config_overwrite to create arrays of config file variables.
See also the config files page, config variables page, $config_dir, get_config_vars() andconfig_load().

{foreach},{foreachelse}{foreach} is used to loop over an associative array as well a numerically-indexed array, unlike{section} which is for looping over numerically-indexed arrays only. The syntax for {foreach}
is much easier than {section}, but as a tradeoff it can only be used for a single array. Every{foreach} tag must be paired with a closing {/foreach} tag.
Attribute NameType

Required

Default

Description

from

array

Yes

n/a

The array you arelooping throughitem

stringYesn/a

The name of thevariable that is thecurrent element

key

stringNon/a

The name of thevariable that is thecurrent key

namestringNon/a

The name of theforeach loop foraccessing foreachproperties• Required attributes are from and item.
• The name of the {foreach} loop can be anything you like, made up of letters, numbers andunderscores, like PHP variables [http://php.net/language.variables].

63Built-in Functions• {foreach} loops can be nested, and the nested {foreach} names must be unique from each other.
• The from attribute, usually an array of values, determines the number of times {foreach} will loop.
• {foreachelse} is executed when there are no values in the from variable.
• {foreach} loops also have their own variables that handle properties. These are accessed with:{$smarty.foreach.name.property} with “name” being the name attribute.

Note
The name attribute is only required when you want to access a {foreach} property, unlike{section}. Accessing a {foreach} property with name undefined does not throw anerror, but leads to unpredictable results instead.
• {foreach} properties are index, iteration, first, last, show, total.

Example 7.5. The item attribute<?php$arr = array(1000, 1001, 1002);$smarty->assign('myArray', $arr);?>

Template to output $myArray in an un-ordered list<ul>{foreach from=$myArray item=foo}<li>{$foo}</li>{/foreach}</ul>

The above example will output:<ul><li>1000</li><li>1001</li><li>1002</li>
</ul>

64

Built-in Functions

Example 7.6. Demonstrates the item and key attributes<?php$arr = array(9 => 'Tennis', 3 => 'Swimming', 8 => 'Coding');$smarty->assign('myArray', $arr);?>

Template to output $myArray as key/val pair, like PHP's foreach [http://php.net/foreach].

<ul>{foreach from=$myArray key=k item=v}<li>{$k}: {$v}</li>{/foreach}</ul>

The above example will output:<ul><li>9: Tennis</li><li>3: Swimming</li><li>8: Coding</li>
</ul>

65

Built-in Functions

Example 7.7. {foreach} with associative item attribute<?php$items_list = array(23 => array('no' => 2456, 'label' => 'Salad'),96 => array('no' => 4889, 'label' => 'Cream'));$smarty->assign('items', $items_list);?>

Template to output $items with $myId in the url<ul>{foreach from=$items key=myId item=i}<li><a href="item.php?id={$myId}">{$i.no}: {$i.label}</li>{/foreach}</ul>

The above example will output:<ul><li><a href="item.php?id=23">2456: Salad</li><li><a href="item.php?id=96">4889: Cream</li>
</ul>

66

Built-in Functions

Example 7.8. {foreach} with nested item and key
Assign an array to Smarty, the key contains the key for each looped value.

<?php$smarty->assign('contacts', array(
array('phone' => '1',
'fax' => '2','cell' => '3'),
array('phone' => '555-4444','fax' => '555-3333','cell' => '760-1234')));?>

The template to output $contact.

{foreach name=outer item=contact from=$contacts}<hr />{foreach key=key item=item from=$contact}{$key}: {$item}<br />{/foreach}{/foreach}

The above example will output:<hr />
phone: 1<br />fax: 2<br />cell: 3<br /><hr />
phone: 555-4444<br />fax: 555-3333<br />cell: 760-1234<br />67

Built-in Functions

Example 7.9. Database example with {foreachelse}
A database (eg PEAR or ADODB) example of a search script, the query results assigned to Smarty<?php$search_condition = "where name like '$foo%' ";$sql = 'select contact_id, name, nick from contacts '.$search_condition.' order b$smarty->assign('results', $db->getAssoc($sql) );?>The template which display “None found” if no results with {foreachelse}.

{foreach key=cid item=con from=$results}<a href="contact.php?contact_id={$cid}">{$con.name} - {$con.nick}</a><br />{foreachelse}
No items were found in the search{/foreach}.indexindex contains the current array index, starting with zero.

Example 7.10. index example{* The header block is output every five rows *}<table>{foreach from=$items key=myId item=i name=foo}{if $smarty.foreach.foo.index % 5 == 0}<tr><th>Title</th></tr>{/if}<tr><td>{$i.label}</td></tr>{/foreach}</table>.iteration
iteration contains the current loop iteration and always starts at one, unlike index. It is incremented
by one on each iteration.

68Built-in Functions

Example 7.11. iteration and index example{* this will output 0|1, 1|2, 2|3, ... etc *}{foreach from=$myArray item=i name=foo}{$smarty.foreach.foo.index}|{$smarty.foreach.foo.iteration},{/foreach}.firstfirst is TRUE if the current {foreach} iteration is the initial one.

Example 7.12. first property example{* show LATEST on the first item, otherwise the id *}<table>{foreach from=$items key=myId item=i name=foo}<tr><td>{if $smarty.foreach.foo.first}LATEST{else}{$myId}{/if}</td><td>{$i.label}</td></tr>{/foreach}</table>.last
last is set to TRUE if the current {foreach} iteration is the final one.

Example 7.13. last property example{* Add horizontal rule at end of list *}{foreach from=$items key=part_id item=prod name=products}<a href="#{$part_id}">{$prod}</a>{if $smarty.foreach.products.last}<hr>{else},{/i{foreachelse}... content ...
{/foreach}.show
show is used as a parameter to {foreach}. show is a boolean value. If FALSE, the {foreach} will
not be displayed. If there is a {foreachelse} present, that will be alternately displayed.

69Built-in Functions.totaltotal contains the number of iterations that this {foreach} will loop. This can be used inside or afterthe {foreach}.

Example 7.14. total property example{* show rows returned at end *}{foreach from=$items key=part_id item=prod name=foo}{$prod.name}<hr/>{if $smarty.foreach.foo.last}<div id="total">{$smarty.foreach.foo.total} items</div>{/if}{foreachelse}... something else ...
{/foreach}

See also {section} and $smarty.foreach.

{if},{elseif},{else}{if} statements in Smarty have much the same flexibility as PHP if [http://php.net/if] statements, with a
few added features for the template engine. Every {if} must be paired with a matching {/if}. {else}and {elseif} are also permitted. All PHP conditionals and functions are recognized, such as ||, or, &&,and, is_array(), etc.
If $security is enabled, only
$security_settings are allowed.

PHP

functions

from

the

IF_FUNCS

array

from

The following is a list of recognized qualifiers, which must be separated from surrounding elements by
spaces. Note that items listed in [brackets] are optional. PHP equivalents are shown where applicable.
Qualifier

Alternates

Syntax Example

Meaning

PHP Equivalent==eq$a eq $b

equals==!=ne, neq$a neq $b

not equals

!=

>

gt

$a gt $b

greater than

>

<

lt

$a lt $b

less than<>=gte, ge$a ge $b

greaterequal<=lte, le$a le $b

less than or equal<=$a === 0check for identity

===

===

than

or >=

!

not

not $anegation (unary)

!

%

mod

$a mod $b

modulous%is [not] div by$a is not div by 4

divisible by$a % $b == 0

is [not] even$a is not even

[not]
an
even $a % 2 == 0
number (unary)70Built-in Functions

Qualifieris [not] even by

Alternates

Syntax Example

Meaning

PHP Equivalent$a is not even by $b grouping level [not] ($a / $b) % 2 == 0even

is [not] odd$a is not odd

is [not] odd by$a is not odd by $b [not]angrouping

71[not] an odd number $a % 2 != 0
(unary)odd ($a / $b) % 2 != 0

{* same as above *}{if $name == 'Fred' || $name == 'Wilma'}...
Built-in Functions{/if}{* parenthesis
allowed *}Example7.15. {if}arestatements{if ( $amount < 0 or $amount > 1000 ) and $volume >= #minVolAmt#}
...
{/if}

{* you can also embed php function calls *}{if count($var) gt 0}
...
{/if}
{* check for array. *}{if is_array($foo) }
.....
{/if}
{* check for not null. *}{if isset($foo) }
.....
{/if}

{* test if values are even or odd *}{if $var is even}
...
{/if}
{if $var is odd}
...
{/if}
{if $var is not odd}
...
{/if}

{* test if var is divisible by 4 *}{if $var is div by 4}
...
{/if}

{*
test if var is even, grouped by two. i.e.,0=even, 1=even, 2=odd, 3=odd, 4=even, 5=even, etc.
*}
{if $var is even by 2}
...
{/if}
{* 0=even, 1=even, 2=even, 3=odd, 4=odd, 5=odd, etc. *}{if $var is even by 3}
...
{/if}

72

Built-in Functions

Example 7.16. {if} with more examples{if isset($name) && $name == 'Blog'}{* do something *}{elseif $name == $foo}{* do something *}{/if}{if is_array($foo) && count($foo) > 0}{* do a foreach loop *}{/if}{include}{include} tags are used for including other templates in the current template. Any variables available
in the current template are also available within the included template.
• The {include} tag must have the file attribute which contains the template resource path.
• Setting the optional assign attribute specifies the template variable that the output of {include} isassigned to, instead of being displayed. Similar to {assign}.
• Variables can be passed to included templates as attributes. Any variables explicitly passed to an
included template are only available within the scope of the included file. Attribute variables override
current template variables, in the case when they are named the same.
• All assigned variable values are restored after the scope of the included template is left. This means
you can use all variables from the including template inside the included template. But changes tovariables inside the included template are not visible inside the including template after the {include}
statement.
• Use the syntax for template resources to {include} files outside of the $template_dir directory.
Attribute NameType

Required

Default

filestringYesn/a

The name of thetemplate file toincludeassignstringNon/a

The name of thevariable that theoutput of include
will be assigned to[var ...][var type]

No

n/a

variable to passlocal to template73

Description

Built-in Functions

Example 7.17. Simple {include} example<html><head><title>{$title}</title></head><body>{include file='page_header.tpl'}{* body of template goes here, the $tpl_name variable
is replaced with a value eg 'contact.tpl'*}{include file="$tpl_name.tpl"}{include file='page_footer.tpl'}</body></html>Example 7.18. {include} passing variables{include file='links.tpl' title='Newest links' links=$link_array}{* body of template goes here *}{include file='footer.tpl' foo='bar'}

The template above includes the example links.tpl below<div id="box"><h3>{$title}{/h3><ul>{foreach from=$links item=l}.. do stuff ...
</foreach}</ul></div>

74

Built-in Functions

Example 7.19. {include} and assign to variableThis example assigns the contents of nav.tpl to the $navbar variable, which is then output at boththe top and bottom of the page.

<body>{include file='nav.tpl' assign=navbar}{include file='header.tpl' title='Smarty is cool'}{$navbar}{* body of template goes here *}{$navbar}{include file='footer.tpl'}</body>Example 7.20. Various {include} resource examples{* absolute filepath *}{include file='/usr/local/include/templates/header.tpl'}{* absolute filepath (same thing) *}{include file='file:/usr/local/include/templates/header.tpl'}{* windows absolute filepath (MUST use "file:" prefix) *}{include file='file:C:/www/pub/templates/header.tpl'}{* include from template resource named "db" *}{include file='db:header.tpl'}{* include a $variable template - eg $module = 'contacts' *}{include file="$module.tpl"}{* wont work as its single quotes ie no variable substitution *}{include file='$module.tpl'}{* include a multi $variable template - eg amber/links.view.tpl *}{include file="$style_dir/$module.$view.tpl"}

See also {include_php}, {insert}, {php}, template resources and componentized templates.

{include_php}
Technical Note{include_php} is pretty much deprecated from Smarty, you can accomplish the samefunctionality via a custom template function. The only reason to use {include_php} is if you

75Built-in Functions

really have a need to quarantine the php function away from the plugins/ directory or yourapplication code. See the componentized template example for details.

Attribute NameType

Required

Default

Description

filestringYesn/a

The name of the php
file to include

oncebooleanNo

TRUE

whether or not toinclude the php
file more than once
if included multiple
times

assignstring

No

n/a

The
name
of
the variable thattheoutputofinclude_php will beassigned to{include_php} tags are used to include a php script in your template. If $security is enabled, thenthe php script must be located in the $trusted_dir path. The {include_php} tag must have theattribute file, which contains the path to the included php file, either relative to $trusted_dir, oran absolute path.
By default, php files are only included once even if called multiple times in the template. You can specify
that it should be included every time with the once attribute. Setting once to FALSE will include the php
script each time it is included in the template.
You can optionally pass the assign attribute, which will specify a template variable name that the output
of {include_php} will be assigned to instead of displayed.
The smarty object is available as $this within the PHP script that you include.

76Built-in Functions

Example 7.21. function {include_php}
The load_nav.php file:<?php// load in variables from a mysql db and assign them to the template
require_once('database.class.php');$db = new Db();$db->query('select url, name from navigation order by name');$this->assign('navigation', $db->getRows());?>

where the template is:{* absolute path, or relative to $trusted_dir *}{include_php file='/path/to/load_nav.php'}{foreach item='nav' from=$navigation}<a href="{$nav.url}">{$nav.name}</a><br />{/foreach}

See also {include}, $security, $trusted_dir, {php}, {capture}, template resources andcomponentized templates{insert}{insert} tags work much like {include} tags, except that {insert} tags are NOT cached whentemplate caching is enabled. They will be executed on every invocation of the template.
Attribute NameType

Required

Default

namestring

Yes

n/a

The
name
of
the insert function(insert_name)assignstringNon/a

The name of thetemplate variable
the output will beassigned toscriptstringNon/a

The name of thephp script that isincluded before theinsert function iscalled77

Description

Built-in Functions

Attribute NameType

Required

Default[var ...][var type]

No

n/a

Description
variable to pass toinsert function

Let's say you have a template with a banner slot at the top of the page. The banner can contain any mixtureof HTML, images, flash, etc. so we can't just use a static link here, and we don't want this contents cachedwith the page. In comes the {insert} tag: the template knows #banner_location_id# and #site_id# values(gathered from a config file), and needs to call a function to get the banner contents.

Example 7.22. function {insert}{* example of fetching a banner *}{insert name="getBanner" lid=#banner_location_id# sid=#site_id#}
In this example, we are using the name “getBanner” and passing the parameters #banner_location_id# and#site_id#. Smarty will look for a function named insert_getBanner() in your PHP application, passing thevalues of #banner_location_id# and #site_id# as the first argument in an associative array. All {insert}
function names in your application must be prepended with "insert_" to remedy possible function namespace conflicts. Your insert_getBanner() function should do something with the passed values and returnthe results. These results are then displayed in the template in place of the {insert} tag. In this example,
Smarty would call this function: insert_getBanner(array("lid" => "12345","sid" => "67890")); and display
the returned results in place of the {insert} tag.
• If you supply the assign attribute, the output of the {insert} tag will be assigned to this template
variable instead of being output to the template.

Note
Assigning the output to a template variable isn't too useful with caching enabled.
• If you supply the script attribute, this php script will be included (only once) before the {insert}
function is executed. This is the case where the insert function may not exist yet, and a php script must
be included first to make it work.
The path can be either absolute, or relative to $trusted_dir. When $security is enabled, thescript must reside in $trusted_dir.
The Smarty object is passed as the second argument. This way you can reference and modify informationin the Smarty object from within the {insert} function.

Technical Note
It is possible to have portions of the template not cached. If you have caching turned on,{insert} tags will not be cached. They will run dynamically every time the page is created,even within cached pages. This works good for things like banners, polls, live weather, search
results, user feedback areas, etc.
See also {include}{ldelim},{rdelim}{ldelim} and {rdelim} are used for escaping template delimiters, by default { and }. You can alsouse {literal}{/literal} to escape blocks of text eg Javascript or CSS. See also the complimentary{$smarty.ldelim}.

78

Built-in Functions

Example 7.23. {ldelim}, {rdelim}{* this will print literal delimiters out of the template *}{ldelim}funcname{rdelim} is how functions look in Smarty!

The above example will output:{funcname} is how functions look in Smarty!

Another example with some Javascript<script language="JavaScript">function foo() {ldelim}... code ...
{rdelim}</script>will output<script language="JavaScript">function foo() {.... code ...
}</script>

Example 7.24. Another Javascript example<script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">function myJsFunction(){ldelim}
alert("The server name\n{$smarty.server.SERVER_NAME}\n{$smarty.server.SERVE{rdelim}</script><a href="javascript:myJsFunction()">Click here for Server Info</a>

See also {literal} and escaping Smarty parsing.

79Built-in Functions{literal}{literal} tags allow a block of data to be taken literally. This is typically used around Javascript
or stylesheet blocks where {curly braces} would interfere with the template delimiter syntax. Anything
within {literal}{/literal} tags is not interpreted, but displayed as-is. If you need templatetags embedded in a {literal} block, consider using {ldelim}{rdelim} to escape the individual
delimiters instead.

Example 7.25. {literal} tags{literal}<script type="text/javascript"><!-function isblank(field) {if (field.value == ''){ return false; }else{
document.loginform.submit();return true;}}// --></script>{/literal}

Example 7.26. Javascript function example<script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">{literal}function myJsFunction(name, ip){
alert("The server name\n" + name + "\n" + ip);}{/literal}</script><a href="javascript:myJsFunction('{$smarty.server.SERVER_NAME}','{$smarty.server.SE

80

Built-in Functions

Example 7.27. Some css style in a template{* included this style .. as an experiment *}<style type="text/css">{literal}/* this is an intersting idea for this section */.madIdea{
border: 3px outset #ffffff;
margin: 2 3 4 5px;
background-color: #001122;}{/literal}</style><div class="madIdea">With smarty you can embed CSS in the template</div>

See also {ldelim} {rdelim} and the escaping Smarty parsing page.

{php}
The {php} tags allow PHP code to be embedded directly into the template. They will not be escaped,
regardless of the $php_handling setting. This is for advanced users only, not normally needed andnot recommended.

Technical NoteTo access PHP variables in {php} blocks you will need to use the PHP global [http://php.net/
global] keyword.

Example 7.28. php code within {php} tags

{php}// including a php script directly from the template.
include('/path/to/display_weather.php');{/php}

81

Built-in Functions

Example 7.29. {php} tags with global and assigning a variable{* this template includes a {php} block that assign's the variable $varX *}{php}
global $foo, $bar;
if($foo == $bar){echo 'This will be sent to browser';}// assign a variable to Smarty$this->assign('varX','Toffee');{/php}{* output the variable *}<strong>{$varX}</strong> is my fav ice cream :-)See also $php_handling, {include_php}, {include}, {insert} and componentizedtemplates.

{section},{sectionelse}
A {section} is for looping over sequentially indexed arrays of data, unlike {foreach} which isused to loop over a single associative array. Every {section} tag must be paired with a closing {/section} tag.
Attribute NameType

Required

Default

namestringYesn/a

The name of thesection

loop

mixed

Yes

n/a

Value to determine
the number of loop
iterations

start

integerNo0

The index position
that the section will
begin looping. If thevalue is negative,
the start positionis calculated fromthe end of thearray. For example,
if there are sevenvalues in the loop
array and start is-2, the start index
is 5. Invalid values(values outside ofthelengthofthe loop array)
are automaticallytruncated to theclosest valid value.

82

Description

Built-in Functions

Attribute NameType

Required

Default

Description

step

integerNo

1

The step value thatwill be used totraverse the loop
array. For example,
step=2 will loop
on index 0,2,4,etc. If step isnegative, it will step
through the array
backwards.

max

integerNo

n/a

Sets the maximum
number of times thesection will loop.

showbooleanNo

TRUE

Determines
whether or not toshow this section• Required attributes are name and loop.
• The name of the {section} can be anything you like, made up of letters, numbers and underscores,
like PHP variables [http://php.net/language.variables].
• {section}'s can be nested, and the nested {section} names must be unique from each other.
• The loop attribute, usually an array of values, determines the number of times the {section} will
loop. You can also pass an integer as the loop value.
• When printing a variable within a {section}, the {section} name must be given next to variablename within [brackets].
• {sectionelse} is executed when there are no values in the loop variable.
• A {section} also has its own variables that handle {section} properties. These properties areaccessible as: {$smarty.section.name.property} where “name” is the attribute name.
• {section} properties are index, index_prev, index_next, iteration, first, last,rownum, loop, show, total.

83Built-in Functions

Example 7.30. Looping a simple array with {section}
assign() an array to Smarty<?php$data = array(1000,1001,1002);$smarty->assign('custid',$data);?>

The template that outputs the array{* this example will print out all the values of the $custid array *}{section name=customer loop=$custid}
id: {$custid[customer]}<br />{/section}<hr />{* print out all the values of the $custid array reversed *}{section name=foo loop=$custid step=-1}{$custid[foo]}<br />{/section}

The above example will output:

id: 1000<br />id: 1001<br />id: 1002<br /><hr />
id: 1002<br />id: 1001<br />id: 1000<br />84

Built-in Functions

Example 7.31. {section} without an assigned array{section name=foo start=10 loop=20 step=2}{$smarty.section.foo.index}{/section}<hr />{section name=bar loop=21 max=6 step=-2}{$smarty.section.bar.index}{/section}

The above example will output:

10 12 14 16 18<hr />
20 18 16 14 12 10

Example 7.32. Naming a {section}
The name of the {section} can be anything you like, see PHP variables [http://php.net/
language.variables]. It is used to reference the data within the {section}.

{section name=anything loop=$myArray}{$myArray[anything].foo}{$name[anything]}{$address[anything].bar}{/section}

85

Built-in Functions

Example 7.33. Looping an associative array with {section}
This is an example of printing an associative array of data with a {section}. Following is the php script
to assign the $contacts array to Smarty.

<?php$data = array(
array('name' => 'John Smith', 'home' => '555-555-5555','cell' => '666-555-5555', 'email' => 'john@myexample.com'),array('name' => 'Jack Jones', 'home' => '777-555-5555','cell' => '888-555-5555', 'email' => 'jack@myexample.com'),array('name' => 'Jane Munson', 'home' => '000-555-5555','cell' => '123456', 'email' => 'jane@myexample.com'));$smarty->assign('contacts',$data);?>

The template to output $contacts{section name=customer loop=$contacts}<p>
name: {$contacts[customer].name}<br />home: {$contacts[customer].home}<br />cell: {$contacts[customer].cell}<br />e-mail: {$contacts[customer].email}</p>{/section}

The above example will output:<p>
name: John Smith<br />home: 555-555-5555<br />cell: 666-555-5555<br />e-mail: john@myexample.com</p><p>
name: Jack Jones<br />home phone: 777-555-5555<br />cell phone: 888-555-5555<br />e-mail: jack@myexample.com</p><p>
name: Jane Munson<br />home phone: 000-555-5555<br />cell phone: 123456<br />e-mail: jane@myexample.com
</p>

86

Built-in Functions

Example 7.34. {section} demonstrating the loop variableThis example assumes that $custid, $name and $address are all arrays containing the same numberof values. First the php script that assign's the arrays to Smarty.

<?php$id = array(1001,1002,1003);$smarty->assign('custid',$id);$fullnames = array('John Smith','Jack Jones','Jane Munson');$smarty->assign('name',$fullnames);$addr = array('253 Abbey road', '417 Mulberry ln', '5605 apple st');$smarty->assign('address',$addr);?>
The loop variable only determines the number of times to loop. You can access ANY variable from thetemplate within the {section}{section name=customer loop=$custid}<p>
id: {$custid[customer]}<br />name: {$name[customer]}<br />address: {$address[customer]}</p>{/section}

The above example will output:<p>
id: 1000<br />name: John Smith<br />address: 253 Abbey road</p><p>
id: 1001<br />name: Jack Jones<br />address: 417 Mulberry ln</p><p>
id: 1002<br />name: Jane Munson<br />address: 5605 apple st
</p>

87

Built-in Functions{section}'s can be nested as deep as you like. With nested {section}'s, you can access complex data
structures, such as multi-dimensional arrays. This is an example .php script thats assign's the arrays.
<?php
Example 7.35. Nested {section}'s$id = array(1001,1002,1003);$smarty->assign('custid',$id);$fullnames = array('John Smith','Jack Jones','Jane Munson');$smarty->assign('name',$fullnames);$addr = array('253 N 45th', '417 Mulberry ln', '5605 apple st');$smarty->assign('address',$addr);$types = array(
array( 'home phone', 'cell phone', 'e-mail'),array( 'home phone', 'web'),array( 'cell phone'));$smarty->assign('contact_type', $types);$info = array(
array('555-555-5555', '666-555-5555', 'john@myexample.com'),array( '123-456-4', 'www.example.com'),array( '0457878'));$smarty->assign('contact_info', $info);
In this template, $contact_type[customer] is an array of contact types for the current customer.
{section
name=customer loop=$custid}?><hr>
id: {$custid[customer]}<br />name: {$name[customer]}<br />address: {$address[customer]}<br />{section name=contact loop=$contact_type[customer]}{$contact_type[customer][contact]}: {$contact_info[customer][contact]}<br />{/section}{/section}
The above example will output:<hr>
id: 1000<br />name: John Smith<br />address: 253 N 45th<br />home phone: 555-555-5555<br />cell phone: 666-555-5555<br />e-mail: john@myexample.com<br /><hr>
id: 1001<br />name: Jack Jones<br />address: 417 Mulberry ln<br />home phone: 123-456-4<br />web: www.example.com<br /><hr>
id: 1002<br />name: Jane Munson<br />address: 5605 apple st<br />cell phone: 0457878<br />88

Built-in Functions

Example 7.36. Database example with a {sectionelse}
Results of a database search (eg ADODB or PEAR) are assigned to Smarty<?php$sql = 'select id, name, home, cell, email from contacts '."where name like '$foo%' ";$smarty->assign('contacts', $db->getAll($sql));?>

The template to output the database result in a HTML table<table><tr><th>&nbsp;</th><th>Name></th><th>Home</th><th>Cell</th><th>Email</th></tr>{section name=co loop=$contacts}<tr><td><a href="view.php?id={$contacts[co].id}">view<a></td><td>{$contacts[co].name}</td><td>{$contacts[co].home}</td><td>{$contacts[co].cell}</td><td>{$contacts[co].email}</td><tr>{sectionelse}<tr><td colspan="5">No items found</td></tr>{/section}</table>.indexindex contains the current array index, starting with zero or the start attribute if given. It incrementsby one or by the step attribute if given.

Technical Note
If the step and start properties are not modified, then this works the same as the iteration
property, except it starts at zero instead of one.

89

Built-in Functions

Example 7.37. {section} index property

FYI$custid[customer.index] and $custid[customer] are identical.

{section name=customer loop=$custid}{$smarty.section.customer.index} id: {$custid[customer]}<br />{/section}

The above example will output:

0 id: 1000<br />1 id: 1001<br />2 id: 1002<br />.index_prev
index_prev is the previous loop index. On the first loop, this is set to -1.

.index_next
index_next is the next loop index. On the last loop, this is still one more than the current index,
respecting the setting of the step attribute, if given.

90Built-in Functions

Example 7.38. index, index_next and index_prev properties<?php$data = array(1001,1002,1003,1004,1005);$smarty->assign('rows',$data);?>

Template to output the above array in a table{* $rows[row.index] and $rows[row] are identical in meaning *}<table><tr><th>index</th><th>id</th><th>index_prev</th><th>prev_id</th><th>index_next</th><th>next_id</th></tr>{section name=row loop=$rows}<tr><td>{$smarty.section.row.index}</td><td>{$rows[row]}</td><td>{$smarty.section.row.index_prev}</td><td>{$rows[row.index_prev]}</td><td>{$smarty.section.row.index_next}</td><td>{$rows[row.index_next]}</td></tr>{/section}</table>The above example will output a table containing the following:

index
0
1
2
3
4

id
1001
1002
1003
1004
1005

index_prev prev_id index_next next_id
-1
1
1002
0
1001
2
1003
1
1002
3
1004
2
1003
4
1005
3
1004
5

.iteration
iteration contains the current loop iteration and starts at one.

Note
This is not affected by the {section} properties start, step and max, unlike the index
property. iteration also starts with one instead of zero unlike index. rownum is an alias
to iteration, they are identical.

91

Built-in Functions

Example 7.39. A section's iteration property<?php// array of 3000 to 3015
$id = range(3000,3015);$smarty->assign('arr',$id);?>
Template to output every other element of the $arr array as step=2{section name=cu loop=$arr start=5 step=2}
iteration={$smarty.section.cu.iteration}index={$smarty.section.cu.index}
id={$custid[cu]}<br />{/section}

The above example will output:

iteration=1 index=5 id=3005<br />iteration=2 index=7 id=3007<br />iteration=3 index=9 id=3009<br />iteration=4 index=11 id=3011<br />iteration=5 index=13 id=3013<br />iteration=6 index=15 id=3015<br />Another example that uses the iteration property to output a table header block every five rows. Usesthe {if} function with the mod operator.

<table>{section name=co loop=$contacts}{if $smarty.section.co.iteration % 5 == 1}<tr><th>&nbsp;</th><th>Name></th><th>Home</th><th>Cell</th><th>Email</th></tr>
{/if}
<tr>
<td><a href="view.php?id={$contacts[co].id}">view<a></td><td>{$contacts[co].name}</td><td>{$contacts[co].home}</td><td>{$contacts[co].cell}</td><td>{$contacts[co].email}</td><tr>{/section}</table>92

Built-in Functions.firstfirst is set to TRUE if the current {section} iteration is the initial one.

.last
last is set to TRUE if the current section iteration is the final one.

Example 7.40. {section} property first and lastThis example loops the $customers array, outputs a header block on the first iteration and on the last
outputs the footer block. Also uses the total property.

{section name=customer loop=$customers}{if $smarty.section.customer.first}<table><tr><th>id</th><th>customer</th></tr>
{/if}
<tr>
<td>{$customers[customer].id}}</td><td>{$customers[customer].name}</td></tr>{if $smarty.section.customer.last}<tr><td></td><td>{$smarty.section.customer.total} customers</td></tr></table>{/if}{/section}.rownum
rownum contains the current loop iteration, starting with one. It is an alias to iteration, they work
identically.

.loop
loop contains the last index number that this {section} looped. This can be used inside or after the{section}.

93

Built-in Functions

Example 7.41. {section} property loop

{section name=customer loop=$custid}{$smarty.section.customer.index} id: {$custid[customer]}<br />{/section}
There are {$smarty.section.customer.loop} customers shown above.

The above example will output:

0 id: 1000<br />1 id: 1001<br />2 id: 1002<br />There are 3 customers shown above.

.show
show is used as a parameter to section and is a boolean value. If FALSE, the section will not be displayed.
If there is a {sectionelse} present, that will be alternately displayed.

94Built-in Functions

Example 7.42. show property
Boolean $show_customer_info has been passed from the PHP application, to regulate whether or
not this section shows.

{section name=customer loop=$customers show=$show_customer_info}{$smarty.section.customer.rownum} id: {$customers[customer]}<br />{/section}{if $smarty.section.customer.show}
the section was shown.
{else}
the section was not shown.
{/if}

The above example will output:

1 id: 1000<br />2 id: 1001<br />3 id: 1002<br />the section was shown.

.totaltotal contains the number of iterations that this {section} will loop. This can be used inside or aftera {section}.

Example 7.43. total property example{section name=customer loop=$custid step=2}{$smarty.section.customer.index} id: {$custid[customer]}<br />{/section}
There are {$smarty.section.customer.total} customers shown above.

See also {foreach} and $smarty.section.

{strip}Many times web designers run into the issue where white space and carriage returns affect the output of
the rendered HTML (browser "features"), so you must run all your tags together in the template to get thedesired results. This usually ends up in unreadable or unmanageable templates.

95

Built-in Functions

Anything within {strip}{/strip} tags are stripped of the extra spaces or carriage returns at the
beginnings and ends of the lines before they are displayed. This way you can keep your templates readable,
and not worry about extra white space causing problems.

Note{strip}{/strip} does not affect the contents of template variables, see the strip modifier
instead.

Example 7.44. {strip} tags{* the following will be all run into one line upon output *}{strip}<table border='0'>
<tr>
<td>
<a href="{$url}"><font color="red">This is a test</font>
</a>
</td>
</tr>
</table>{/strip}

The above example will output:<table border='0'><tr><td><a href="http://. snipped...</a></td></tr></table>

Notice that in the above example, all the lines begin and end with HTML tags. Be aware that all the lines
are run together. If you have plain text at the beginning or end of any line, they will be run together, andmay not be desired results.
See also the strip modifier.

96

Chapter 8. Custom Functions
Smarty comes with several custom functions that you can use in the templates.

{assign}{assign} is used for assigning template variables during the execution of a template.

Attribute NameType

Required

Default

Description

varstring

Yes

n/a

The
name
of
the variable being
assignedvaluestringYesn/a

The valueassigned

being

Example 8.1. {assign}{assign var='name' value='Bob'}
The value of $name is {$name}.

The above example will output:

The value of $name is Bob.

Example 8.2. {assign} with some maths
This complex example must have the variables in `backticks`{assign var=running_total value=`$running_total+$some_array[row].some_value`}97

Custom Functions

Example 8.3. Accessing {assign} variables from a PHP script
To access {assign} variables from a php script use get_template_vars(). Here's the templatethat creates the variable $foo.

{assign var='foo' value='Smarty'}

The template variables are only available after/during template execution as in the following script.

<?php// this will output nothing as the template has not been executedecho $smarty->get_template_vars('foo');// fetch the template to a variable$whole_page = $smarty->fetch('index.tpl');// this will output 'smarty' as the template has been executedecho $smarty->get_template_vars('foo');$smarty->assign('foo','Even smarter');// this will output 'Even smarter'
echo $smarty->get_template_vars('foo');?>

The following functions can also optionally assign template variables.
{capture}, {include}, {include_php}, {insert}, {counter}, {cycle}, {eval},{fetch}, {math}, {textformat}
See also assign() and get_template_vars().

{counter}{counter} is used to print out a count. {counter} will remember the count on each iteration. You
can adjust the number, the interval and the direction of the count, as well as determine whether or not toprint the value. You can run multiple counters concurrently by supplying a unique name for each one. If
you do not supply a name, the name “default” will be used.
If you supply the assign attribute, the output of the {counter} function will be assigned to thistemplate variable instead of being output to the template.
Attribute NameType

Required

Default

Description

namestringNo

default

The name of thecounter98

Custom Functions

Attribute NameType

Required

Default

Description

startnumberNo

1

The initial number
to start counting
from

skip

numberNo

1

The intervalcount bydirection

stringNo

up

The direction tocount (up/down)

printbooleanNo

TRUE

Whether or not toprint the value

assignstring

No

n/a

the
templatevariable the output
will be assigned toto

Example 8.4. {counter}{* initialize the count *}{counter start=0 skip=2}<br />{counter}<br />{counter}<br />{counter}<br />this will output:0<br />
2<br />
4<br />
6<br />{cycle}{cycle} is used to alternate a set of values. This makes it easy to for example, alternate between two or
more colors in a table, or cycle through an array of values.
Attribute NameType

Required

Default

Description

namestringNo

default

The name of thecyclevalues

mixed

Yes

N/A

The values to cycle
through, either acomma delimited
list (see delimiter99

Custom Functions

Attribute NameType

Required

Default

Description
attribute), or
array of values

an

print

booleanNo

TRUE

Whether to print thevalue or notadvancebooleanNo

TRUE

Whether or not toadvance to the next
value

delimiter

stringNo,

The delimiter to
use in the values
attributeassignstring

No

n/a

The
templatevariable the output
will be assigned toresetbooleanNo

FALSE

The cycle will be set
to the first value andnot advanced• You can {cycle} through more than one set of values in a template by supplying a name attribute.
Give each {cycle} an unique name.
• You can force the current value not to print with the print attribute set to FALSE. This would be
useful for silently skipping a value.
• The advance attribute is used to repeat a value. When set to FALSE, the next call to {cycle} will
print the same value.
• If you supply the assign attribute, the output of the {cycle} function will be assigned to a template
variable instead of being output to the template.

100

Custom Functions

Example 8.5. {cycle}{section name=rows loop=$data}<tr class="{cycle values="odd,even"}"><td>{$data[rows]}</td></tr>{/section}

The above template would output:<tr class="odd"><td>1</td></tr><tr class="even"><td>2</td></tr><tr class="odd"><td>3</td></tr>{debug}{debug} dumps the debug console to the page. This works regardless of the debug settings in the php
script. Since this gets executed at runtime, this is only able to show the assigned variables; not the templates
that are in use. However, you can see all the currently available variables within the scope of a template.
Attribute NameType

Required

Default

Description

outputstringNo

javascript

output type, html orjavascript

See also the debugging console page.

{eval}{eval} is used to evaluate a variable as a template. This can be used for things like embedding templatetags/variables into variables or tags/variables into config file variables.
If you supply the assign attribute, the output of the {eval} function will be assigned to this template
variable instead of being output to the template.
Attribute NameType

Required

Default

var

mixed

Yes

n/a

101

Description
Variable (or string)to evaluate

Custom Functions

Attribute NameType

Required

Default

assignstringNon/aDescriptionThe
templatevariable the output
will be assigned toTechnical Note
• Evaluated variables are treated the same as templates. They follow the same escapement andsecurity features just as if they were templates.
• Evaluated variables are compiled on every invocation, the compiled versions are not saved!
However if you have caching enabled, the output will be cached with the rest of the template.

Example 8.6. {eval}
The contents of the config file, setup.conf.

emphstart = <strong>emphend = </strong>
title = Welcome to {$company}'s home page!
ErrorCity = You must supply a {#emphstart#}city{#emphend#}.
ErrorState = You must supply a {#emphstart#}state{#emphend#}.

Where the template is:{config_load file='setup.conf'}{eval var=$foo}{eval var=#title#}{eval var=#ErrorCity#}{eval var=#ErrorState# assign='state_error'}{$state_error}

The above template will output:

This is the contents of foo.
Welcome to Foobar Pub & Grill's home page!
You must supply a <strong>city</strong>.
You must supply a <strong>state</strong>.

102

Custom Functions

Example 8.7. Another {eval} example
This outputs the server name (in uppercase) and IP. The assigned variable $str could be from a database
query.

<?php$str = 'The server name is {$smarty.server.SERVER_NAME|upper} '.'at {$smarty.server.SERVER_ADDR}';$smarty->assign('foo',$str);?>

Where the template is:{eval var=$foo}{fetch}{fetch} is used to retrieve files from the local file system, http, or ftp and display the contents.
• If the file name begins with http://, the web site page will be fetched and displayed.

NoteThis will not support http redirects, be sure to include a trailing slash on your web page fetches
where necessary.
• If the file name begins with ftp://, the file will be downloaded from the ftp server and displayed.
• For local files, either a full system file path must be given, or a path relative to the executed php script.

Note
If template $security is enabled and you are fetching a file from the local file system,{fetch} will only allow files from within one of the defined secure directories.
• If the assign attribute is set, the output of the {fetch} function will be assigned to this template
variable instead of being output to the template.
Attribute NameType

Required

Default

filestringYesn/a

The file, http or ftp
site to fetch

assignstring

No

n/a

The
templatevariable the output
will be assigned to103

Description

Custom Functions

Example 8.8. {fetch} examples{* include some javascript in your template *}{fetch file='/export/httpd/www.example.com/docs/navbar.js'}{* embed some weather text in your template from another web site *}{fetch file='http://www.myweather.com/68502/'}{* fetch a news headline file via ftp *}{fetch file='ftp://user:password@ftp.example.com/path/to/currentheadlines.txt'}{* as above but with variables *}{fetch file="ftp://`$user`:`$password`@`$server`/`$path`"}{* assign the fetched contents to a template variable *}{fetch file='http://www.myweather.com/68502/' assign='weather'}{if $weather ne ''}<div id="weather">{$weather}</div>{/if}

See also {capture}, {eval}, {assign} and fetch().

{html_checkboxes}{html_checkboxes} is a custom function that creates an html checkbox group with provided data. It
takes care of which item(s) are selected by default as well.
Attribute NameType

Required

Default

Description

namestringNocheckbox

Name of checkbox
listvaluesarray

Yes, unless using
options attribute

n/a

An
array
of
values for checkbox
buttons

outputarray

Yes, unless using
options attribute

n/a

An
array
of
output for checkbox
buttons

selected

string/array

No

empty

The
selected
checkbox
element(s)options

associative array

Yes, unless using
values and output

n/aAn
associativearray of values andoutputseparator

stringNo

empty

Stringoftext
to separate eachcheckbox item

assignstringNo

empty

Assign checkbox
tags to an array
instead of output

104

Custom Functions

Attribute NameType

Required

Default

Description

labelsbooleanNo

TRUE

Add <label>-tags tothe output• Required attributes are values and output, unless you use options instead.
• All output is XHTML compliant.
• All parameters that are not in the list above are printed as name/value-pairs inside each of the created<input>-tags.

105

Custom Functions

Example 8.9. {html_checkboxes}<?php$smarty->assign('cust_ids', array(1000,1001,1002,1003));$smarty->assign('cust_names', array('Joe Schmoe','Jack Smith','Jane Johnson','Charlie Brown'));$smarty->assign('customer_id', 1001);?>
where template is{html_checkboxes name='id' values=$cust_ids output=$cust_names
selected=$customer_id separator='<br />'}or where PHP code is:<?php$smarty->assign('cust_checkboxes', array(
1000 => 'Joe Schmoe',
1001 => 'Jack Smith',
1002 => 'Jane Johnson',1003 => 'Charlie Brown'));$smarty->assign('customer_id', 1001);?>
and the template is{html_checkboxes name='id' options=$cust_checkboxes
selected=$customer_id separator='<br />'}
both examples will output:<label><input type="checkbox" name="id[]" value="1000" />Joe Schmoe</label><br /><label><input type="checkbox" name="id[]" value="1001" checked="checked" />Jack Smi<br /><label><input type="checkbox" name="id[]" value="1002" />Jane Johnson</label><br /><label><input type="checkbox" name="id[]" value="1003" />Charlie Brown</label><br /106

Custom Functions

Example 8.10. Database example (eg PEAR or ADODB):<?php$sql = 'select type_id, types from contact_types order by type';$smarty->assign('contact_types',$db->getAssoc($sql));$sql = 'select contact_id, contact_type_id, contact '.'from contacts where contact_id=12';$smarty->assign('contact',$db->getRow($sql));?>

The results of the database queries above would be output with.

{html_checkboxes name='contact_type_id' options=$contact_types
selected=$contact.contact_type_id separator='<br />'}

See also {html_radios} and {html_options}{html_image}{html_image} is a custom function that generates an HTML <img> tag. The height and width
are automatically calculated from the image file if they are not supplied.
Attribute NameType

Required

Default

Description

filestringYesn/aheightstringNo

actual image height Height to display
image

width

stringNo

actual image width Width to display
image

basedir

stringnoweb server
doc root

Directory to baserelative paths fromalt

stringno“”

Alternativedescription of the
image

href

stringnon/ahref value to link
the image topath_prefix

stringnon/aPrefix for output
path

name/path to image• basedir is the base directory that relative image paths are based from. If not given, the web server's
document root $_ENV['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] is used as the base. If $security is enabled, the pathto the image must be within a secure directory.

107

Custom Functions• href is the href value to link the image to. If link is supplied, an <a href="LINKVALUE"><a>tag is placed around the image tag.
• path_prefix is an optional prefix string you can give the output path. This is useful if you want to
supply a different server name for the image.
• All parameters that are not in the list above are printed as name/value-pairs inside the created <img> tag.

Technical Note{html_image} requires a hit to the disk to read the image and calculate the height and width. If
you don't use template caching, it is generally better to avoid {html_image} and leave image
tags static for optimal performance.

Example 8.11. {html_image} example{html_image file='pumpkin.jpg'}{html_image file='/path/from/docroot/pumpkin.jpg'}{html_image file='../path/relative/to/currdir/pumpkin.jpg'}

Example output of the above template would be:<img src="pumpkin.jpg" alt="" width="44" height="68" /><img src="/path/from/docroot/pumpkin.jpg" alt="" width="44" height="68" /><img src="../path/relative/to/currdir/pumpkin.jpg" alt="" width="44" height="68" />{html_options}{html_options} is a custom function that creates the html <select><option> group with theassigned data. It takes care of which item(s) are selected by default as well.
Attribute NameType

Required

Default

valuesarray

Yes, unless using
options attributen/a

An array of values
for dropdown

outputarray

Yes, unless using
options attributen/a

An array of output
for dropdown

selected

string/array

No

empty

The selected option
element(s)options

associative array

Yes, unless using
values and output

n/aAn
associativearray of values andoutputnamestring

No

empty

Name
group

108

DescriptionofselectCustom Functions• Required attributes are values and output, unless you use the combined options instead.
• If the optional name attribute is given, the <select></select> tags are created, otherwise ONLY
the <option> list is generated.
• If a given value is an array, it will treat it as an html <optgroup>, and display the groups. Recursion
is supported with <optgroup>.
• All parameters that are not in the list above are printed as name/value-pairs inside the <select> tag.
They are ignored if the optional name is not given.
• All output is XHTML compliant.

Example 8.12. Associative array with the options attribute<?php$smarty->assign('myOptions', array(
1800 => 'Joe Schmoe',
9904 => 'Jack Smith',2003 => 'Charlie Brown'));$smarty->assign('mySelect', 9904);?>

The following template will generate a drop-down list. Note the presence of the name attribute which
creates the <select> tags.

{html_options name=foo options=$myOptions selected=$mySelect}

Output of the above example would be:<select name="foo"><option label="Joe Schmoe" value="1800">Joe Schmoe</option><option label="Jack Smith" value="9904" selected="selected">Jack Smith</option><option label="Charlie Brown" value="2003">Charlie Brown</option></select>109

Custom Functions

Example 8.13. Dropdown with seperate arrays for values and ouptut<?php$smarty->assign('cust_ids', array(56,92,13));$smarty->assign('cust_names', array('Joe Schmoe','Jane Johnson','Charlie Brown'));$smarty->assign('customer_id', 92);?>

The above arrays would be output with the following template (note the use of the php count() [http://
php.net/function.count] function as a modifier to set the select size).

<select name="customer_id" size="{$cust_names|@count}">{html_options values=$cust_ids output=$cust_names selected=$customer_id}</select>

The above example would output:<select name="customer_id" size="3"><option label="Joe Schmoe" value="56">Joe Schmoe</option><option label="Jack Smith" value="92" selected="selected">Jane Johnson</option><option label="Charlie Brown" value="13">Charlie Brown</option></select>110Custom Functions

Example 8.14. Database example (eg ADODB or PEAR)<?php$sql = 'select type_id, types from contact_types order by type';$smarty->assign('contact_types',$db->getAssoc($sql));$sql = 'select contact_id, name, email, contact_type_id
from contacts where contact_id='.$contact_id;$smarty->assign('contact',$db->getRow($sql));?>

Where a template could be as follows. Note the use of the truncate modifier.

<select name="type_id"><option value='null'>-- none --</option>{html_options options=$contact_types|truncate:20 selected=$contact.type_id}</select>111Custom Functions

Example 8.15. Dropdown's with <optgroup><?php$arr['Sport'] = array(6 => 'Golf', 9 => 'Cricket',7 => 'Swim');$arr['Rest'] = array(3 => 'Sauna',1 => 'Massage');$smarty->assign('lookups', $arr);$smarty->assign('fav', 7);?>

The script above and the following template{html_options name=foo options=$lookups selected=$fav}

would output:<select name="foo"><optgroup label="Sport"><option label="Golf" value="6">Golf</option><option label="Cricket" value="9">Cricket</option><option label="Swim" value="7" selected="selected">Swim</option></optgroup><optgroup label="Rest"><option label="Sauna" value="3">Sauna</option><option label="Massage" value="1">Massage</option></optgroup></select>

See also {html_checkboxes} and {html_radios}{html_radios}{html_radios} is a custom function that creates a HTML radio button group. It also takes care ofwhich item is selected by default as well.
Attribute NameType

Required

Default

Description

namestringNo

radio

Name of radio list

valuesarray

Yes, unless using
options attributen/a

An array of values
for radio buttons

outputarray

Yes, unless using
options attributen/a

An array of output
for radio buttons

112

Custom Functions

Attribute NameType

Required

Default

Description

selected

stringNo

empty

The selected radio
element

options

associative array

Yes, unless using
values and output

n/aAn
associativearray of values andoutputseparator

stringNo

empty

String of text toseparate each radio
itemassignstringNo

empty

Assign radio tags to
an array instead of
output• Required attributes are values and output, unless you use options instead.
• All output is XHTML compliant.
• All parameters that are not in the list above are output as name/value-pairs inside each of the created<input>-tags.

Example 8.16. {html_radios} first example<?php$smarty->assign('cust_ids', array(1000,1001,1002,1003));$smarty->assign('cust_names', array('Joe Schmoe','Jack Smith','Jane Johnson','Charlie Brown'));$smarty->assign('customer_id', 1001);?>

Where template is:{html_radios name='id' values=$cust_ids output=$cust_names
selected=$customer_id separator='<br />'}

113

Custom Functions

Example 8.17. {html_radios} second example<?php$smarty->assign('cust_radios', array(
1000 => 'Joe Schmoe',
1001 => 'Jack Smith',
1002 => 'Jane Johnson',1003 => 'Charlie Brown'));$smarty->assign('customer_id', 1001);?>

Where template is:{html_radios name='id' options=$cust_radios
selected=$customer_id separator='<br />'}

Both examples will output:<label for="id_1000"><input type="radio" name="id" value="1000" id="id_1000" />Joe Schmoe</label><br /><label for="id_1001"><input type="radio" name="id" value="1001" id="id_1001" checke<label for="id_1002"><input type="radio" name="id" value="1002" id="id_1002" />Jane<label for="id_1003"><input type="radio" name="id" value="1003" id="id_1003" />Char114

Custom Functions

Example 8.18. {html_radios} - Database example (eg PEAR or ADODB):<?php$sql = 'select type_id, types from contact_types order by type';$smarty->assign('contact_types',$db->getAssoc($sql));$sql = 'select contact_id, name, email, contact_type_id '.'from contacts where contact_id='.$contact_id;$smarty->assign('contact',$db->getRow($sql));?>

The variable assigned from the database above would be output with the template:{html_radios name='contact_type_id' options=$contact_types
selected=$contact.contact_type_id separator='<br />'}

See also {html_checkboxes} and {html_options}{html_select_date}{html_select_date} is a custom function that creates date dropdowns. It can display any or all ofyear, month, and day. All parameters that are not in the list below are printed as name/value-pairs inside
the <select> tags of day, month and year.
Attribute NameType

Required

Default

Description

prefixstringNo

Date_

What to prefix thevar name withtime

timestamp/
YYYY-MM-DD

No

current time inunix timestamp
or YYYYMM-DD format

What date/time tousestart_year

stringNo

current year

The first year in the
dropdown, either
year number, or
relative to current
year (+/- N)

end_yearstringNo

display_days

booleanNo

115

same as start_year The last year in the
dropdown, either
year number, or
relative to current
year (+/- N)
TRUE

Whether to display
days or notCustom Functions

Attribute NameType

Required

Default

Description

display_months

booleanNo

TRUE

Whether to display
months or not

display_years

booleanNo

TRUE

Whether to display
years or notmonth_format

stringNo%B

What format themonth should be in(strftime)

day_format

stringNo%02d

What format the
day output should
be in (sprintf)

day_value_format

stringNo%dWhat format the
day value should bein (sprintf)

year_as_text

booleanNo

FALSE

Whether or not todisplay the year as
text

reverse_years

booleanNo

FALSE

Display years inreverse orderfield_arraystringNonull

If a name is given,
the select boxes
will be drawn suchthat the results
will be returnedto PHP in theform of name[Day],
name[Year],
name[Month].

day_sizestringNo

null

Adds size attributeto select tag if given

month_size

stringNo

null

Adds size attributeto select tag if given

year_size

stringNo

null

Adds size attributeto select tag if given

all_extra

string

No

null

Adds
extra
attributes to all
select/input tags if
given

day_extra

string

No

null

Adds
extra
attributes to select/
input tags if given

month_extra

string

No

null

Adds
extra
attributes to select/
input tags if given

year_extra

string

No

null

Adds
extra
attributes to select/
input tags if given

116Custom Functions

Attribute NameType

Required

Default

Description

field_order

stringNo

MDY

The order in whichto display the fields

field_separator

stringNo\nStringbetweenfieldsmonth_value_format

stringNo%mstrftime() format of
the month values,
default is %m formonth numbers.

year_empty

stringNonull

If supplied thenthe first element of
the year's selectbox has this value
as it's label and“” as it's value.
This is useful tomake the select-box
read “Please selecta year” for example.
Note that you can
use values like “MM-DD” as timeattribute to indicate
an unselected year.

month_empty

stringNonull

If supplied then thefirst element of themonth's select-box
has this value as it'slabel and “” as it'svalue. . Note thatyou can use values
like “YYYY--DD”
astime-attributetoindicateanunselected month.

day_empty

stringNonull

If supplied then thefirst element of the
day's select-box has
this value as it'slabel and “” as
it's value. Note thatyou can use values
like “YYYY-MM-”astime-attributetoindicateanunselected day.

117

printeddifferentCustom Functions

Note
There is an useful php function on the date tips page for converting {html_select_date}form values to a timestamp.

Example 8.19. {html_select_date}
Template code

{html_select_date}This will output:<select name="Date_Month"><option value="1">January</option><option value="2">February</option><option value="3">March</option>..... snipped .....
<option value="10">October</option><option value="11">November</option><option value="12" selected="selected">December</option></select><select name="Date_Day"><option value="1">01</option><option value="2">02</option><option value="3">03</option>..... snipped .....
<option value="11">11</option><option value="12">12</option><option value="13" selected="selected">13</option><option value="14">14</option><option value="15">15</option>..... snipped .....
<option value="29">29</option><option value="30">30</option><option value="31">31</option></select><select name="Date_Year"><option value="2006" selected="selected">2006</option></select>118Custom Functions

Example 8.20. {html_select_date} second example{* start and end year can be relative to current year *}{html_select_date prefix='StartDate' time=$time start_year='-5'
end_year='+1' display_days=false}

With 2000 as the current year the output:<select name="StartDateMonth"><option value="1">January</option><option value="2">February</option>.... snipped ....
<option value="11">November</option><option value="12" selected="selected">December</option></select><select name="StartDateYear"><option value="1995">1995</option>.... snipped ....
<option value="1999">1999</option><option value="2000" selected="selected">2000</option><option value="2001">2001</option></select>

See also {html_select_time}, date_format, $smarty.now and the date tips page.

{html_select_time}{html_select_time} is a custom function that creates time dropdowns for you. It can display any
or all of hour, minute, second and meridian.
The time attribute can have different formats. It can be a unique timestamp, a string of the format
YYYYMMDDHHMMSS or a string that is parseable by PHP's strtotime() [http://php.net/strtotime].
Attribute NameType

Required

Default

Description

prefixstringNo

Time_

What to prefix thevar name withtime

timestampNo

current time

What date/time tousedisplay_hours

booleanNo

TRUE

Whether or not todisplay hours

display_minutes

booleanNo

TRUE

Whether or not todisplay minutes

display_seconds

booleanNo

TRUE

Whether or not todisplay seconds

119Custom Functions

Attribute NameType

Required

Default

Description

display_meridian

booleanNo

TRUE

Whether or not
to display meridian(am/pm)use_24_hours

booleanNo

TRUE

Whether or not touse 24 hour clock

minute_interval

integerNo

1

Number interval inminute dropdown

second_interval

integerNo

1

Number interval insecond dropdown

field_arraystringNon/a

Outputs values toarray of this nameall_extra

string

No

null

Adds
extra
attributes to select/
input tags if given

hour_extra

string

No

null

Adds
extra
attributes to select/
input tags if given

minute_extra

string

No

null

Adds
extra
attributes to select/
input tags if given

second_extra

string

No

null

Adds
extra
attributes to select/
input tags if given

meridian_extra

string

No

null

Adds
extra
attributes to select/
input tags if given

120

Custom Functions

Example 8.21. {html_select_time}{html_select_time use_24_hours=true}

At 9:20 and 23 seconds in the morning the template above would output:<select name="Time_Hour"><option value="00">00</option><option value="01">01</option>... snipped ....
<option value="08">08</option><option value="09" selected>09</option><option value="10">10</option>... snipped ....
<option value="22">22</option><option value="23">23</option></select><select name="Time_Minute"><option value="00">00</option><option value="01">01</option>... snipped ....
<option value="19">19</option><option value="20" selected>20</option><option value="21">21</option>... snipped ....
<option value="58">58</option><option value="59">59</option></select><select name="Time_Second"><option value="00">00</option><option value="01">01</option>... snipped ....
<option value="22">22</option><option value="23" selected>23</option><option value="24">24</option>... snipped ....
<option value="58">58</option><option value="59">59</option></select><select name="Time_Meridian"><option value="am" selected>AM</option><option value="pm">PM</option></select>

See also $smarty.now, {html_select_date} and the date tips page.

121

Custom Functions{html_table}{html_table} is a custom function that dumps an array of data into an HTML <table>.
Attribute NameType

Required

Default

loop

array

Yes

n/a

Array of data toloop through

cols

mixed

No

3

Number of columns
in the table ora comma-separated
list of column
heading names oran array of column
heading names.if
the cols-attribute is
empty, but rows
are given, then thenumber of cols is
computed by the
number of rows
and the number of
elements to display
to be just enoughcols to display all
elements. If both,rows and cols,
are omitted cols
defaults to 3. if
given as a list orarray, the numberofcolumns
iscomputed from thenumber of elementsin the list or array.

rows

integerNo

empty

Number of rows
in the table. if
the rows-attributeis empty, but cols
are given, then thenumber of rows
is computed by
the number of cols
and the number of
elements to display
to be just enoughrows to display all
elements.

inner

stringNo

cols

Directionofconsecutive
elements in theloop-array to be

122

Description

Custom Functions

Attribute NameType

Required

Default

Description
rendered.
colsmeans elements are
displayed col-bycol. rows means
elements
aredisplayed row-byrow.

captionstringNo

empty

Text to be used forthe <caption>
element of the table

table_attr

stringNoborder="1"

th_attrstringNo

empty

Attributes for <th>tag (arrays arecycled)tr_attrstringNo

empty

attributes for <tr>
tag (arrays arecycled)td_attrstringNo

empty

Attributes for <td>tag (arrays arecycled)trailpadstringNo&nbsp;

Value to pad thetrailing cells on lastrow with (if any)hdirstringNo

right

Direction of eachrow to be rendered.
possiblevalues:right (left-to-right),
and left (right-toleft)vdir

stringNo

down

Direction of eachcolumntoberendered. possible
values: down (topto-bottom),up(bottom-to-top)

Attributes<table> tagfor• The cols attribute determines how many columns will be in the table.
• The table_attr, tr_attr and td_attr values determine the attributes given to the <table>,<tr> and <td> tags.
• If tr_attr or td_attr are arrays, they will be cycled through.
• trailpad is the value put into the trailing cells on the last table row if there are any present.

123

Custom Functions

Example 8.22. {html_table}<?php$smarty->assign( 'data', array(1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9) );$smarty->assign( 'tr', array('bgcolor="#eeeeee"','bgcolor="#dddddd"') );$smarty->display('index.tpl');?>The variables assigned from php could be displayed as these three examples demonstrate. Each example
shows the template followed by output.
{**** Example One ****}{html_table loop=$data}<table border="1"><tbody><tr><td>1</td><td>2</td><td>3</td></tr><tr><td>4</td><td>5</td><td>6</td></tr><tr><td>7</td><td>8</td><td>9</td></tr></tbody></table>{**** Example Two ****}{html_table loop=$data cols=4 table_attr='border="0"'}<table border="0"><tbody><tr><td>1</td><td>2</td><td>3</td><td>4</td></tr><tr><td>5</td><td>6</td><td>7</td><td>8</td></tr><tr><td>9</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr></tbody></table>{**** Example Three ****}{html_table loop=$data cols="first,second,third,fourth" tr_attr=$tr}<table border="1"><thead><tr><th>first</th><th>second</th><th>third</th><th>fourth</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr bgcolor="#eeeeee"><td>1</td><td>2</td><td>3</td><td>4</td></tr><tr bgcolor="#dddddd"><td>5</td><td>6</td><td>7</td><td>8</td></tr><tr bgcolor="#eeeeee"><td>9</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr></tbody></table>124

Custom Functions{mailto}{mailto} automates the creation of a mailto: anchor links and optionally encodes them. Encoding
emails makes it more difficult for web spiders to lift email addresses off of a site.

Technical Note
Javascript is probably the most thorough form of encoding, although you can use hex encoding
too.

Attribute NameType

Required

Default

address

stringYesn/a

The e-mail address

text

stringNon/a

The text to display,default is the e-mailaddress

encodestringNo

none

How to encode
the e-mail. Can beone of none, hex,
javascript or
javascript_charcode.

cc

string

No

n/a

Email
addresses
to carbon copy,
separate entries by acomma.

bcc

stringNo

n/aEmail addresses toblind carbon copy,
separate entries by acomma

subjectstringNo

n/aEmail subject

newsgroups

stringNon/aNewsgroups to post
to, separate entries
by a comma.

followupto

stringNon/aAddresses to follow
up to, separate
entries by a comma.

extrastring

No

n/a

Any
extra
information
youwant passed to thelink, such as style
sheet classes

125

Description

Custom Functions

Example 8.23. {mailto} example lines followed by the result{mailto address="me@example.com"}<a href="mailto:me@example.com" >me@example.com</a>{mailto address="me@example.com" text="send me some mail"}<a href="mailto:me@example.com" >send me some mail</a>{mailto address="me@example.com" encode="javascript"}<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript">eval(unescape('%64%6f% ... snipped ...%61%3e%27%29%3b'))</script>{mailto address="me@example.com" encode="hex"}<a href="mailto:%6d%65.. snipped..3%6f%6d">&#x6d;&..snipped...#x6f;&#x6d;</a>{mailto address="me@example.com" subject="Hello to you!"}<a href="mailto:me@example.com?subject=Hello%20to%20you%21" >me@example.com</a>{mailto address="me@example.com" cc="you@example.com,they@example.com"}<a href="mailto:me@example.com?cc=you@example.com%2Cthey@example.com" >me@example.c{mailto address="me@example.com" extra='class="email"'}<a href="mailto:me@example.com" class="email">me@example.com</a>{mailto address="me@example.com" encode="javascript_charcode"}<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript"><!-{document.write(String.fromCharCode(60,97, ... snipped ....60,47,97,62))}//--></script>

See also escape, {textformat} and obfuscating email addresses.

{math}{math} allows the template designer to do math equations in the template.
• Any numeric template variables may be used in the equations, and the result is printed in place of the tag.
• The variables used in the equation are passed as parameters, which can be template variables or static
values.
• +, -, /, *, abs, ceil, cos, exp, floor, log, log10, max, min, pi, pow, rand, round, sin, sqrt, srans and tan are
all valid operators. Check the PHP documentation for further information on these math [http://php.net/
eval] functions.
• If you supply the assign attribute, the output of the {math} function will be assigned to this template
variable instead of being output to the template.

126

Custom Functions

Technical Note
{math} is an expensive function in performance due to its use of the php eval() [http://
php.net/eval] function. Doing the math in PHP is much more efficient, so whenever possible dothe math calculations in the script and assign() the results to the template. Definitely avoid
repetitive {math} function calls, eg within {section} loops.

Attribute NameType

Required

Default

Description

equationstringYesn/a

The equation
executeformatstringNon/a

The format of theresult (sprintf)

var

numeric

Yesn/a

Equationvalue

assignstringNon/a

Template variable
the output will beassigned to[var ...]

numeric

Yesn/a

Equation
value

127

to

variablevariableCustom Functions

Example 8.24. {math}
Example a:{* $height=4, $width=5 *}{math equation="x + y" x=$height y=$width}
The above example will output:
9
Example b:{* $row_height = 10, $row_width = 20, #col_div# = 2, assigned in template *}{math equation="height * width / division"height=$row_height
width=$row_width
division=#col_div#}
The above example will output:
100
Example c:{* you can use parenthesis *}{math equation="(( x + y ) / z )" x=2 y=10 z=2}
The above example will output:
6
Example d:{* you can supply a format parameter in sprintf format *}{math equation="x + y" x=4.4444 y=5.0000 format="%.2f"}
The above example will output:
9.44

128

Custom Functions{textformat}{textformat} is a block function used to format text. It basically cleans up spaces and special
characters, and formats paragraphs by wrapping at a boundary and indenting lines.
You can set the parameters explicitly, or use a preset style. Currently “email” is the only available style.

Attribute NameType

Required

Default

DescriptionstylestringNo

n/aPreset styleindentnumberNo

0

The number ofchars to indent
every line

indent_firstnumberNo

0

The number ofchars to indent thefirst line

indent_char

stringNo(single space)

The character (orstring of chars) toindent withwrap

number

No

80

How
many
characters to wrap
each line towrap_charstring

No\n

The character (orstring of chars) to
break each line with

wrap_cutbooleanNo

FALSE

If TRUE, wrap will
break the line at
the exact character
instead of at a wordboundary

assignstring

No

n/a

The
templatevariable the output
will be assigned to129{textformat wrap=40}
This is foo.
This is foo.
This is foo.
This is foo.
This isfoo.
Example8.25.
{textformat}
This is foo.

Custom Functions

This
This isis foo.
bar. This is foo. This is foo.
This is foo. This is foo. This is foo.
bar foo bar foo
foo.
This
is bar.
bar foobar foofoo.
{textformat wrap=40 indent=4}
bar foo bar foo
foo.
bar
foo
foo.foo.
bar foo bar foo
The barabovefoo
exampleoutput:barfoobarwill
foo
This
is
foo.
foo.
bar
foo
bar
foo
foo. bar foo bar
bar foo bar foo
foo.
This
is foo.
foo
foo.
bar
foo
bar
foo foo. bar foo
bar foo bar foo
foo.
This
is foo.
bar
foo
foo.
bar
foo
bar foo foo.
bar foo bar foo
foo.
This is foo.
This is foo.
{/textformat}
This is foo.
This
This isis foo.
bar. This is foo. This isfoo. This is foo. This is foo. Thisisbarfoo.
foo bar foo
foo.
bar foo bar foo
foo.
This
is bar.
bar foobar foofoo.
The barabovefoo
exampleoutput: foo.
barwillfoo{textformat
wrap=40
indent=4
bar
bar foo indent_first=4}
bar foobar foofoo barbar foofoo foo.foo.
foo.
bar
foo
bar
foo
foo.
bar
foo
bar foo bar foo
foo.
This
is foo.
bar
foo
foo.
bar
foo
bar
foo
foo.
bar foo bar foo
foo.
This
is foo.
bar foobar foo foo. bar foo bar
Thisis foo.
foo
foo.
{/textformat}
This is foo.
This is foo.
This is foo.
This is foo. This is foo. This
is
foo.
This
is Thisbar. is foo. This is foo.
This is foo.
bar foo bar foo
foo.
This
is bar.
bar foobar foofoo.
The barabovefoo
exampleoutput: foo.
barwillfoo{textformat
style="email"}bar
bar foo bar
bar foofoo barbar foofoo foo.foo.
foo
foo.
bar
foo
bar
foo foo. bar
bar foo bar foo
foo.
This
is foo.
foo
bar
foo
foo.
bar
foo bar foo
bar foo bar foo
foo.
This
is
foo.
foo.
bar
foo
bar
foo
foo. bar foo
bar foo bar foo
foo.
This
is foo.
bar foofoo.
This is foo.
{/textformat}
This is foo.
This is foo.
This
This isis foo.
bar. This is foo. This is foo. This is foo. This is foo. This isfoo.
bar foo bar foo
foo.
This
is bar.
bar foobar foofoo.
bar foo bar foo
foo.
bar
foo
foo.foo.
bar foo bar foo foo. bar foo bar foo foo. bar foo
The barabovefoo
exampleoutput:barfoobarwill
foo
bar
foo
foo.
bar
foo
bar foo foo. bar foo bar foo foo. bar foo bar foo
bar foo bar foo
foo.
foo.
bar foo bar foo
foo.
bar foo bar foo
foo.
{/textformat}

130

Custom Functions

See also {strip} and wordwrap.

131Chapter 9. Config Files
Config files are handy for designers to manage global template variables from one file. One example istemplate colors. Normally if you wanted to change the color scheme of an application, you would have togo through each and every template file and change the colors. With a config file, the colors can be kept
in one place, and only one file needs to be updated.

Example 9.1. Example of config file syntax# global variables
pageTitle = "Main Menu"
bodyBgColor = #000000
tableBgColor = #000000
rowBgColor = #00ff00[Customer]
pageTitle = "Customer Info"[Login]pageTitle = "Login"focus = "username"
Intro = """This is a value that spans morethan one line. you must enclose
it in triple quotes."""# hidden section[.Database]host=my.example.com
db=ADDRESSBOOK
user=php-user
pass=foobar

Values of config file variables can be in quotes, but not necessary. You can use either single or double
quotes. If you have a value that spans more than one line, enclose the entire value with triple quotes (""").
You can put comments into config files by any syntax that is not a valid config file syntax. We recommend
using a # (hash) at the beginning of the line.
The example config file above has two sections. Section names are enclosed in [brackets]. Section names
can be arbitrary strings not containing [ or ] symbols. The four variables at the top are global variables,or variables not within a section. These variables are always loaded from the config file. If a particularsection is loaded, then the global variables and the variables from that section are also loaded. If a variable
exists both as a global and in a section, the section variable is used. If you name two variables the same
within a section, the last one will be used unless $config_overwrite is disabled.
Config files are loaded into templates with the built-in template function {config_load} or the API
config_load() function.
You can hide variables or entire sections by prepending the variable name or section name with a period
eg [.hidden]. This is useful if your application reads the config files and gets sensitive data from them132

Config Filesthat the template engine does not need. If you have third parties doing template editing, you can be certainthat they cannot read sensitive data from the config file by loading it into the template.
See also {config_load}, $config_overwrite, get_config_vars(), clear_config()
and config_load()133

Chapter 10. Debugging Console
There is a debugging console included with Smarty. The console informs you of all the included templates,
assigned variables and config file variables for the current invocation of the template. A template file
named debug.tpl is included with the distribution of Smarty which controls the formatting of theconsole.
Set $debugging to TRUE in Smarty, and if needed set $debug_tpl to the template resource path todebug.tpl (this is in SMARTY_DIR by default). When you load the page, a Javascript console window
will pop up and give you the names of all the included templates and assigned variables for the current page.
To see the available variables for a particular template, see the {debug} template function. To disable
the debugging console, set $debugging to FALSE. You can also temporarily turn on the debugging
console by putting SMARTY_DEBUG in the URL if you enable this option with $debugging_ctrl .

Technical Note
The debugging console does not work when you use the fetch() API, only when using
display(). It is a set of javascript statements added to the very bottom of the generated
template. If you do not like javascript, you can edit the debug.tpl template to format the output
however you like. Debug data is not cached and debug.tpl info is not included in the outputof the debug console.

Note
The load times of each template and config file are in seconds, or fractions thereof.
See also troubleshooting, $error_reporting and trigger_error().

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Part III. Smarty For Programmers

Table of Contents
11. Constants .................................................................................................................. 139
SMARTY_DIR ....................................................................................................... 139
SMARTY_CORE_DIR ............................................................................................ 139
12. Smarty Class Variables ............................................................................................... 140$template_dir .......................................................................................................... 140$compile_dir .......................................................................................................... 140$config_dir ............................................................................................................. 140$plugins_dir ........................................................................................................... 140$debugging ............................................................................................................ 141$debug_tpl ............................................................................................................. 141$debugging_ctrl ...................................................................................................... 141$autoload_filters ...................................................................................................... 142$compile_check ...................................................................................................... 142$force_compile ....................................................................................................... 142$caching ................................................................................................................ 143$cache_dir ............................................................................................................. 143$cache_lifetime ....................................................................................................... 143$cache_handler_func ................................................................................................ 144$cache_modified_check ............................................................................................ 144$config_overwrite .................................................................................................... 144$config_booleanize .................................................................................................. 145$config_read_hidden ................................................................................................ 145$config_fix_newlines ............................................................................................... 145$default_template_handler_func ................................................................................. 145$php_handling ........................................................................................................ 145$security ................................................................................................................ 145$secure_dir ............................................................................................................. 146$security_settings .................................................................................................... 146$trusted_dir ............................................................................................................ 146$left_delimiter ........................................................................................................ 147$right_delimiter ...................................................................................................... 147$compiler_class ...................................................................................................... 147$request_vars_order ................................................................................................. 147$request_use_auto_globals ........................................................................................ 147$error_reporting ...................................................................................................... 147$compile_id ........................................................................................................... 147$use_sub_dirs ......................................................................................................... 148$default_modifiers ................................................................................................... 148$default_resource_type ............................................................................................. 148
13. Smarty Class Methods() .............................................................................................. 149
append() ................................................................................................................ 150
append_by_ref() ...................................................................................................... 151
assign() .................................................................................................................. 152
assign_by_ref() ....................................................................................................... 153
clear_all_assign() .................................................................................................... 154
clear_all_cache() ..................................................................................................... 155
clear_assign() ......................................................................................................... 156
clear_cache() .......................................................................................................... 157
clear_compiled_tpl() ................................................................................................ 158
clear_config() ......................................................................................................... 159
config_load() .......................................................................................................... 160

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Smarty For Programmers

display() ................................................................................................................ 161
fetch() ................................................................................................................... 163
get_config_vars() .................................................................................................... 165
get_registered_object() ............................................................................................. 166
get_template_vars() .................................................................................................. 167
is_cached() ............................................................................................................. 168
load_filter() ............................................................................................................ 170
register_block() ....................................................................................................... 171
register_compiler_function() ...................................................................................... 173
register_function() ................................................................................................... 174
register_modifier() ................................................................................................... 176
register_object() ...................................................................................................... 177
register_outputfilter() ............................................................................................... 178
register_postfilter() .................................................................................................. 179
register_prefilter() .................................................................................................... 180
register_resource() ................................................................................................... 181
trigger_error() ......................................................................................................... 182
template_exists() ..................................................................................................... 183
unregister_block() .................................................................................................... 184
unregister_compiler_function() .................................................................................. 185
unregister_function .................................................................................................. 186
unregister_modifier() ............................................................................................... 187
unregister_object() ................................................................................................... 188
unregister_outputfilter() ............................................................................................ 189
unregister_postfilter() ............................................................................................... 190
unregister_prefilter() ................................................................................................ 191
unregister_resource() ................................................................................................ 192
14. Caching .................................................................................................................... 193
Setting Up Caching ................................................................................................. 193
Multiple Caches Per Page ......................................................................................... 195
Cache Groups ......................................................................................................... 197
Controlling Cacheability of Plugins' Output ................................................................. 198
15. Advanced Features ..................................................................................................... 201
Objects .................................................................................................................. 201
Prefilters ................................................................................................................ 203
Postfilters ............................................................................................................... 203
Output Filters ......................................................................................................... 204
Cache Handler Function ........................................................................................... 205
Resources .............................................................................................................. 207
Templates from $template_dir ........................................................................... 207
Templates from any directory ............................................................................ 207
Templates from other sources ............................................................................ 208
Default template handler function ....................................................................... 210
16. Extending Smarty With Plugins .................................................................................... 211
How Plugins Work .................................................................................................. 211
Naming Conventions ............................................................................................... 211
Writing Plugins ....................................................................................................... 212
Template Functions ................................................................................................. 212
Modifiers ............................................................................................................... 214
Block Functions ...................................................................................................... 216
Compiler Functions ................................................................................................. 218
Prefilters/Postfilters .................................................................................................. 219
Output Filters ......................................................................................................... 220
Resources .............................................................................................................. 221

137

Smarty For Programmers

Inserts ................................................................................................................... 223

138

Chapter 11. Constants
SMARTY_DIR
This is the full system path to the location of the Smarty class files. If this is not defined in your script,
then Smarty will attempt to determine the appropriate value automatically. If defined, the path must end
with a trailing slash/.

Example 11.1. SMARTY_DIR<?php// set path to Smarty directory *nix styledefine('SMARTY_DIR', '/usr/local/lib/php/Smarty-v.e.r/libs/');// path to Smarty windows styledefine('SMARTY_DIR', 'c:/webroot/libs/Smarty-v.e.r/libs/');// include the smarty class, note 'S' is upper caserequire_once(SMARTY_DIR . 'Smarty.class.php');?>

See also $smarty.const and $php_handling constants

SMARTY_CORE_DIR
This is the full system path to the location of the Smarty core files. If not defined, Smarty will default thisconstant to the internals/ sub-directory below SMARTY_DIR. If defined, the path must end with aslash/. Use this constant when manually including any of the core.* files.

Example 11.2. SMARTY_CORE_DIR<?php// load core.get_microtime.php
require_once(SMARTY_CORE_DIR . 'core.get_microtime.php');?>

See also $smarty.const

139

Chapter 12. Smarty Class Variables$template_dir
This is the name of the default template directory. If you do not supply a resource type when including
files, they will be found here. By default this is ./templates, meaning that Smarty will look for thetemplates/ directory in the same directory as the executing php script.

Technical Note
It is not recommended to put this directory under the web server document root.

$compile_dir
This is the name of the directory where compiled templates are located. By default this is ./templates_c, meaning that Smarty will look for the templates_c/ directory in the same directoryas the executing php script. This directory must be writeable by the web server, see install for more info.

Technical Note
This setting must be either a relative or absolute path. include_path is not used for writing files.

Technical Note
It is not recommended to put this directory under the web server document root.
See also $compile_id and $use_sub_dirs.

$config_dir
This is the directory used to store config files used in the templates. Default is ./configs, meaning that
Smarty will look for the configs/ directory in the same directory as the executing php script.

Technical Note
It is not recommended to put this directory under the web server document root.

$plugins_dir
This is the directory or directories where Smarty will look for the plugins that it needs. Default isplugins/ under the SMARTY_DIR. If you supply a relative path, Smarty will first look under the
SMARTY_DIR, then relative to the current working directory, then relative to the PHP include_path. If$plugins_dir is an array of directories, Smarty will search for your plugin in each plugin directoryin the order they are given.

Technical Note
For best performance, do not setup your $plugins_dir to have to use the PHP include path.
Use an absolute pathname, or a path relative to SMARTY_DIR or the current working directory.

140

Smarty Class Variables

Example 12.1. Appending a local plugin dir<?php$smarty->plugins_dir[] = 'includes/my_smarty_plugins';?>

Example 12.2. Multiple $plugins_dir<?php$smarty->plugins_dir = array('plugins', // the default under SMARTY_DIR'/path/to/shared/plugins','../../includes/my/plugins');?>$debugging
This enables the debugging console. The console is a javascript popup window that informs you of the
included templates, variables assigned from php and config file variables for the current script. It does notshow variables assigned within a template with the {assign} function.
The console can also be enabled from the url with $debugging_ctrl.
See also {debug}, $debug_tpl, and $debugging_ctrl.

$debug_tpl
This is the name of the template file used for the debugging console. By default, it is named debug.tpl
and is located in the SMARTY_DIR.
See also $debugging and the debugging console section.

$debugging_ctrl
This allows alternate ways to enable debugging. NONE means no alternate methods are allowed. URL
means when the keyword SMARTY_DEBUG is found in the QUERY_STRING, debugging is enabled forthat invocation of the script. If $debugging is TRUE, this value is ignored.

141

Smarty Class Variables

Example 12.3. $debugging_ctrl on localhost<?php// shows debug console only on localhost ie// http://localhost/script.php?foo=bar&SMARTY_DEBUG$smarty->debugging = false; // the default$smarty->debugging_ctrl = ($_SERVER['SERVER_NAME'] == 'localhost') ? 'URL' : 'NONE'?>

See also debugging console section and $debugging.

$autoload_filters
If there are some filters that you wish to load on every template invocation, you can specify them using
this variable and Smarty will automatically load them for you. The variable is an associative array where
keys are filter types and values are arrays of the filter names. For example:<?php$smarty->autoload_filters = array('pre' => array('trim', 'stamp'),'output' => array('convert'));
?>

See
also
register_outputfilter(),register_postfilter() and load_filter()register_prefilter(),$compile_check
Upon each invocation of the PHP application, Smarty tests to see if the current template has changed(different time stamp) since the last time it was compiled. If it has changed, it recompiles that template.
If the template has not been compiled, it will compile regardless of this setting. By default this variable
is set to TRUE.
Once an application is put into production (ie the templates won't be changing), the compile check step is
no longer needed. Be sure to set $compile_check to FALSE for maximal performance. Note that if
you change this to FALSE and a template file is changed, you will *not* see the change since the template
will not get recompiled. If $caching is enabled and $compile_check is enabled, then the cache files
will get regenerated if an involved template file or config file was updated. See $force_compile andclear_compiled_tpl() .

$force_compile
This forces Smarty to (re)compile templates on every invocation. This setting overrides$compile_check. By default this is FALSE. This is handy for development and debugging. It should
never be used in a production environment. If $caching is enabled, the cache file(s) will be regenerated
every time.

142

Smarty Class Variables$caching
This tells Smarty whether or not to cache the output of the templates to the $cache_dir. By default thisis set to 0 ie disabled. If your templates generate redundant content, it is advisable to turn on $caching,as this will result in significant performance gains.
You can also have multiple caches for the same template.
• A value of 1 or 2 enables caching.
• A value of 1 tells Smarty to use the current $cache_lifetime variable to determine if the cache
has expired.
• A value of 2 tells Smarty to use the $cache_lifetime value at the time the cache was generated.
This way you can set the $cache_lifetime just before fetching the template to have granular
control over when that particular cache expires. See also is_cached().
• If $compile_check is enabled, the cached content will be regenerated if any of the templates or
config files that are part of this cache are changed.
• If $force_compile is enabled, the cached content will always be regenerated.
See
also$cache_dir,$cache_lifetime,$cache_handler_func,$cache_modified_check, is_cached() and the caching section.

$cache_dir
This is the name of the directory where template caches are stored. By default this is ./cache, meaningthat Smarty will look for the cache/ directory in the same directory as the executing php script. This
directory must be writeable by the web server, see install for more info.
You can also use your own custom cache handler function to control cache files, which will ignore thissetting. See also $use_sub_dirs.

Technical Note
This setting must be either a relative or absolute path. include_path is not used for writing files.

Technical Note
It is not recommended to put this directory under the web server document root.
See also $caching, $use_sub_dirs, $cache_lifetime, $cache_handler_func,$cache_modified_check and the caching section.

$cache_lifetime
This is the length of time in seconds that a template cache is valid. Once this time has expired, the cache
will be regenerated.
• $caching must be turned on (either 1 or 2) for $cache_lifetime to have any purpose.
• A $cache_lifetime value of -1 will force the cache to never expire.
• A value of 0 will cause the cache to always regenerate (good for testing only, to disable caching a more
efficient method is to set $caching = 0).

143Smarty Class Variables• If you want to give certain templates their own cache lifetime, you could do this by setting $caching= 2, then set $cache_lifetime to a unique value just before calling display() or fetch().
If $force_compile is enabled, the cache files will be regenerated every time, effectively disablingcaching. You can clear all the cache files with the clear_all_cache() function, or individual cache
files (or groups) with the clear_cache() function.

$cache_handler_func
You can supply a custom function to handle cache files instead of using the built-in method using the$cache_dir. See the custom cache handler function section for more details.

$cache_modified_check
If set to TRUE, Smarty will respect the If-Modified-Since header sent from the client. If the cached filetimestamp has not changed since the last visit, then a '304: Not Modified' header will be sent
instead of the content. This works only on cached content without {insert} tags.
See also $caching, $cache_lifetime, $cache_handler_func, and the caching section.

$config_overwrite
If set to TRUE, the default then variables read in from config files will overwrite each other. Otherwise,
the variables will be pushed onto an array. This is helpful if you want to store arrays of data in config files,
just list each element multiple times.

Example 12.4. Array of config #variables#
This examples uses {cycle} to output a table with alternating red/green/blue row colors with$config_overwrite = FALSE.
The config file.

# row colors
rowColors = #FF0000
rowColors = #00FF00
rowColors = #0000FF

The template with a {section} loop.

<table>{section name=r loop=$rows}<tr bgcolor="{cycle values=#rowColors#}"><td> ....etc.... </td></tr>{/section}</table>144

Smarty Class Variables

See also {config_load}, get_config_vars(), clear_config(), config_load() and theconfig files section.

$config_booleanize
If set to TRUE, config files values of on/true/yes and off/false/no get converted to boolean
values automatically. This way you can use the values in the template like so: {if #foobar#}...{/if}. If foobar was on, true or yes, the {if} statement will execute. Defaults to TRUE.

$config_read_hidden
If set to TRUE, hidden sections ie section names beginning with a .period in config files can be read from
templates. Typically you would leave this FALSE, that way you can store sensitive data in the config files
such as database parameters and not worry about the template loading them. FALSE by default.

$config_fix_newlines
If set to TRUE, mac and dos newlines ie '\r' and '\r\n' in config files are converted to '\n' when
they are parsed. Default is TRUE.

$default_template_handler_func
This function is called when a template cannot be obtained from its resource.

$php_handlingThis tells Smarty how to handle PHP code embedded in the templates. There are four possible settings,
the default being SMARTY_PHP_PASSTHRU. Note that this does NOT affect php code within {php}{/php} tags in the template.
• SMARTY_PHP_PASSTHRU - Smarty echos tags as-is.
• SMARTY_PHP_QUOTE - Smarty quotes the tags as html entities.
• SMARTY_PHP_REMOVE - Smarty removes the tags from the templates.
• SMARTY_PHP_ALLOW - Smarty will execute the tags as PHP code.

Note
Embedding PHP code into templates is highly discouraged. Use custom functions or modifiers
instead.

$security$security can be TRUE or FALSE, defaults to FALSE. Security is good for situations when you have
untrusted parties editing the templates eg via ftp, and you want to reduce the risk of system security
compromises through the template language. Turning on security enforces the following rules to thetemplate language, unless specifially overridden with $security_settings:• If $php_handling is set
SMARTY_PHP_PASSTHRU

toSMARTY_PHP_ALLOW,

145

this

is

implicitlychangedtoSmarty Class Variables• PHP functions are not allowed in {if} statements, except those specified in the$security_settings• Templates can only be included from directories listed in the $secure_dir array• Local files can only be fetched from directories listed in the $secure_dir array using {fetch}• {php}{/php} tags are not allowed• PHP functions are not allowed as modifiers, except those specified in the $security_settings$secure_dir
This is an array of all local files and directories that are considered secure. {include} and {fetch}
use this when $security is enabled.

Example 12.5. $secure_dir example<?php$secure_dirs[] = '/path/to/site/root/templates/';$secure_dirs[] = '/path/to/includes/';$smarty->secure_dir = $secure_dirs;?>

See also $security_settings and $trusted_dir.

$security_settings
These are used to override or specify the security settings when $security is enabled. These are thepossible settings:• PHP_HANDLING - boolean. If set to TRUE, the $php_handling setting is not checked for security.
• IF_FUNCS - array. The names of permitted PHP functions in {if} statements.
• INCLUDE_ANY - boolean. If set to TRUE, any template can be included from the file system, regardlessof the $secure_dir list.
• PHP_TAGS - boolean. If set to TRUE, {php}{/php} tags are permitted in the templates.
• MODIFIER_FUNCS - array. The names of permitted PHP functions that can be used as variable
modifiers.
• ALLOW_CONSTANTS - boolean. If set to TRUE, constants via {$smarty.const.FOO} are allowedin the templates.

$trusted_dir$trusted_dir is only for use when $security is enabled. This is an array of all directories that areconsidered trusted. Trusted directories are where you keep php scripts that are executed directly from thetemplates with {include_php}.

146

Smarty Class Variables$left_delimiter
This is the left delimiter used by the template language. Default is {.
See also $right_delimiter and escaping smarty parsing .

$right_delimiter
This is the right delimiter used by the template language. Default is }.
See also $left_delimiter and escaping smarty parsing.

$compiler_classSpecifies the name of the compiler class that Smarty will use to compile the templates. The default is'Smarty_Compiler'. For advanced users only.

$request_vars_order
The order in which request variables are registered, similar to variables_order in php.ini
See also $smarty.request and $request_use_auto_globals.

$request_use_auto_globals
Specifies if Smarty should use PHP's $HTTP_*_VARS[] when FALSE or $_*[] when TRUE
which is the default value. This affects templates that make use of {$smarty.request.*},{$smarty.get.*} etc.

CautionIf you set $request_use_auto_globals to true, $request_vars_order has noeffect but PHP's configuration value gpc_order is used.

$error_reporting
When this value is set to a non-null-value it's value is used as php's error_reporting [http://php.net/
error_reporting] level inside of display() and fetch(). When debugging is enabled this value isignored and the error-level is left untouched.
See also trigger_error(), debugging and troubleshooting.

$compile_id
Persistant compile identifier. As an alternative to passing the same $compile_id to each and every
function call, you can set this $compile_id and it will be used implicitly thereafter.
With a $compile_id you can work around the limitation that you cannot use the same $compile_dir
for different $template_dirs. If you set a distinct $compile_id for each $template_dir then
Smarty can tell the compiled templates apart by their $compile_id.

147

Smarty Class Variables

If you have for example a prefilter that localizes your templates (that is: translates language dependendparts) at compile time, then you could use the current language as $compile_id and you will get a setof compiled templates for each language you use.
Another application would be to use the same compile directory across multiple domains / multiple virtual
hosts.

Example 12.6. $compile_id in a virtual host enviroment<?php$smarty->compile_id = $_SERVER['SERVER_NAME'];$smarty->compile_dir = '/path/to/shared_compile_dir';?>$use_sub_dirs
Smarty will create subdirectories under the compiled templates and cache directories if $use_sub_dirs
is set to TRUE, default is FALSE. In an environment where there are potentially tens of thousands of files
created, this may help the filesystem speed. On the other hand, some environments do not allow PHP
processes to create directories, so this must be disabled which is the default.
Sub directories are more efficient, so use them if you can. Theoretically you get much better perfomanceon a filesystem with 10 directories each having 100 files, than with 1 directory having 1000 files. Thiswas certainly the case with Solaris 7 (UFS)... with newer filesystems such as ext3 and especially reiserfs,
the difference is almost nothing.

Technical Note
• $use_sub_dirs=true doesn't work with safe_mode=On [http://php.net/features.safemode], that's why it's switchable and why it's off by default.
• $use_sub_dirs=true on Windows can cause problems.
• Safe_mode is being deprecated in PHP6.
See also $compile_id, $cache_dir, and $compile_dir.

$default_modifiersThis is an array of modifiers to implicitly apply to every variable in a template. For example, to HTMLescape every variable by default, use array('escape:"htmlall"'). To make a variable exempt
from default modifiers, pass the special smarty modifier with a parameter value of nodefaults
modifier to it, such as {$var|smarty:nodefaults}.

$default_resource_type
This tells smarty what resource type to use implicitly. The default value is file, meaning that $smarty>display('index.tpl') and $smarty->display('file:index.tpl') are identical inmeaning. See the resource chapter for more details.

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Chapter 13. Smarty Class Methods()

149

Smarty Class Methods()

Nameappend() — append an element to an assigned array

Description
void append(mixed var);
void append(string varname,mixed var,bool merge);
If you append to a string value, it is converted to an array value and then appended to. You can explicitly
pass name/value pairs, or associative arrays containing the name/value pairs. If you pass the optional thirdparameter of TRUE, the value will be merged with the current array instead of appended.

Technical Note
The merge parameter respects array keys, so if you merge two numerically indexed arrays,
they may overwrite each other or result in non-sequential keys. This is unlike the PHP
array_merge() [http://php.net/array_merge] function which wipes out numerical keys andrenumbers them.

Example 13.1. append<?php// This is effectively the same as assign()$smarty->append('foo', 'Fred');// After this line, foo will now be seen as an array in the template$smarty->append('foo', 'Albert');$array = array(1 => 'one', 2 => 'two');$smarty->append('X', $array);$array2 = array(3 => 'three', 4 => 'four');// The following line will add a second element to the X array$smarty->append('X', $array2);// passing an associative array$smarty->append(array('city' => 'Lincoln', 'state' => 'Nebraska'));?>See also append_by_ref(), assign() and get_template_vars()

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Smarty Class Methods()

Nameappend_by_ref() — append values by reference

Description
void append_by_ref(string varname,mixed var,bool merge);
This is used to append() values to the templates by reference. If you append a variable by reference
then change its value, the appended value sees the change as well. For objects, append_by_ref() also
avoids an in-memory copy of the appended object. See the PHP manual on variable referencing for an indepth explanation. If you pass the optional third parameter of TRUE, the value will be merged with thecurrent array instead of appended.

Technical Note
The merge parameter respects array keys, so if you merge two numerically indexed arrays,
they may overwrite each other or result in non-sequential keys. This is unlike the PHP
array_merge() [http://php.net/array_merge] function which wipes out numerical keys andrenumbers them.

Example 13.2. append_by_ref<?php// appending name/value pairs$smarty->append_by_ref('Name', $myname);$smarty->append_by_ref('Address', $address);?>

See also append(), assign() and get_template_vars().

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Smarty Class Methods()

Nameassign() — assign values to the templates

Description
void assign(mixed var);
void assign(string varname,mixed var);
You can explicitly pass name/value pairs, or associative arrays containing the name/value pairs.

Example 13.3. assign()<?php// passing name/value pairs$smarty->assign('Name', 'Fred');$smarty->assign('Address', $address);// passing an associative array$smarty->assign(array('city' => 'Lincoln', 'state' => 'Nebraska'));// passing an array$myArray = array('no' => 10, 'label' => 'Peanuts');$smarty->assign('foo',$myArray);// passing a row from a database (eg adodb)$sql = 'select id, name, email from contacts where contact ='.$id;$smarty->assign('contact', $db->getRow($sql));?>

These are accessed in the template with{* note the vars are case sensitive like php *}{$Name}{$Address}{$city}{$state}{$foo.no}, {$foo.label}{$contact.id}, {$contact.name},{$contact.email}To access more complex array assignments see {foreach} and {section}
See also assign_by_ref(), get_template_vars(), clear_assign(), append() and{assign}152

Smarty Class Methods()

Nameassign_by_ref() — assign values by reference

Description
void assign_by_ref(string varname,mixed var);
This is used to assign() values to the templates by reference instead of making a copy. See the PHP
manual on variable referencing for an explanation.

Technical Note
This is used to assign values to the templates by reference. If you assign a variable byreference then change its value, the assigned value sees the change as well. For objects,
assign_by_ref() also avoids an in-memory copy of the assigned object. See the PHP manualon variable referencing for an in-depth explanation.

Example 13.4. assign_by_ref()<?php// passing name/value pairs$smarty->assign_by_ref('Name', $myname);$smarty->assign_by_ref('Address', $address);
?>

See
also
assign(),get_template_vars().

clear_all_assign(),

153

append(),{assign}andSmarty Class Methods()

Nameclear_all_assign() — clears the values of all assigned variables

Description
void clear_all_assign();

Example 13.5. clear_all_assign()<?php// passing name/value pairs$smarty->assign('Name', 'Fred');$smarty->assign('Address', $address);// will output above
print_r( $smarty->get_template_vars() );// clear all assigned variables$smarty->clear_all_assign();// will output nothing
print_r( $smarty->get_template_vars() );?>See also clear_assign(), clear_config(), get_template_vars(), assign() andappend()154

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Nameclear_all_cache() — clears the entire template cache

Description
void clear_all_cache(int expire_time);
As an optional parameter, you can supply a minimum age in seconds the cache files must be before they
will get cleared.

Example 13.6. clear_all_cache<?php// clear the entire cache$smarty->clear_all_cache();// clears all files over one hour old$smarty->clear_all_cache(3600);?>

See also clear_cache(), is_cached() and the caching page.

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Nameclear_assign() — clears the value of an assigned variable

Description
void clear_assign(mixed var);
This can be a single value, or an array of values.

Example 13.7. clear_assign()<?php// clear a single variable$smarty->clear_assign('Name');// clears multiple variables$smarty->clear_assign(array('Name', 'Address', 'Zip'));?>See also clear_all_assign(), clear_config(), get_template_vars(), assign() andappend()156

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Nameclear_cache() — clears the cache for a specific template

Description
void clear_cache(string template,string cache_id,
string compile_id,
int expire_time);• If you have multiple caches for a template, you can clear a specific cache by supplying the cache_id
as the second parameter.
• You can also pass a $compile_id as a third parameter. You can group templates together so they
can be removed as a group, see the caching section for more information.
• As an optional fourth parameter, you can supply a minimum age in seconds the cache file must be before
it will get cleared.

Example 13.8. clear_cache()<?php// clear the cache for a template$smarty->clear_cache('index.tpl');// clear the cache for a particular cache id in an multiple-cache template$smarty->clear_cache('index.tpl', 'MY_CACHE_ID');?>

See also clear_all_cache() and caching section.

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Nameclear_compiled_tpl() — clears the compiled version of the specified template resource

Description
void clear_compiled_tpl(string tpl_file,string compile_id,
int exp_time);
This clears the compiled version of the specified template resource, or all compiled template files if one is
not specified. If you pass a $compile_id only the compiled template for this specific $compile_id iscleared. If you pass an exp_time, then only compiled templates older than exp_time seconds are cleared,
by default all compiled templates are cleared regardless of their age. This function is for advanced use
only, not normally needed.

Example 13.9. clear_compiled_tpl()<?php// clear a specific template resource$smarty->clear_compiled_tpl('index.tpl');// clear entire compile directory$smarty->clear_compiled_tpl();?>See also clear_cache().

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Nameclear_config() — clears assigned config variables

Description
void clear_config(string var);
This clears all assigned config variables. If a variable name is supplied, only that variable is cleared.

Example 13.10. clear_config()<?php// clear all assigned config variables.
$smarty->clear_config();// clear one variable$smarty->clear_config('foobar');?>See also get_config_vars(), config
config_load() and clear_assign().

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variables, config

files, {config_load},Smarty Class Methods()

Nameconfig_load() — loads config file data and assigns it to the template

Description
void config_load(string file,string section);
This loads config file data and assigns it to the template. This works identically to the template{config_load} function.

Technical Note
As of Smarty 2.4.0, assigned template variables are kept across invocations of fetch()and display(). Config vars loaded from config_load() are always global in scope.
Config files are also compiled for faster execution, and respect the $force_compile and$compile_check settings.

Example 13.11. config_load()<?php// load config variables and assign them$smarty->config_load('my.conf');// load a section$smarty->config_load('my.conf', 'foobar');?>See also {config_load},
variables

get_config_vars(),

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clear_config(),

andconfigSmarty Class Methods()

Namedisplay() — displays the template

Description
void display(string template,string cache_id,
string compile_id);
This displays the template unlike fetch(). Supply a valid template resource type and path. As an optional
second parameter, you can pass a $cache id, see the caching section for more information.
As an optional third parameter, you can pass a $compile_id. This is in the event that you want tocompile different versions of the same template, such as having separate templates compiled for different
languages. Another use for $compile_id is when you use more than one $template_dir but only
one $compile_dir. Set a separate $compile_id for each $template_dir, otherwise templatesof the same name will overwrite each other. You can also set the $compile_id variable once insteadof passing this to each call to this function.

Example 13.12. display()<?php
include(SMARTY_DIR.'Smarty.class.php');$smarty = new Smarty();$smarty->caching = true;// only do db calls if cache doesn't exist
if(!$smarty->is_cached('index.tpl')) {// dummy up some data
$address = '245 N 50th';$db_data = array('City' => 'Lincoln','State' => 'Nebraska','Zip' => '68502');$smarty->assign('Name', 'Fred');$smarty->assign('Address', $address);$smarty->assign('data', $db_data);}// display the output$smarty->display('index.tpl');?>161

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Example 13.13. Other display() template resource examples
Use the syntax for template resources to display files outside of the $template_dir directory.

<?php// absolute filepath$smarty->display('/usr/local/include/templates/header.tpl');// absolute filepath (same thing)$smarty->display('file:/usr/local/include/templates/header.tpl');// windows absolute filepath (MUST use "file:" prefix)$smarty->display('file:C:/www/pub/templates/header.tpl');// include from template resource named "db"$smarty->display('db:header.tpl');?>See also fetch() and template_exists().

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Namefetch() — returns the template output

Description
string fetch(string template,string cache_id,
string $compile_id);
This returns the template output instead of displaying it. Supply a valid template resource type and path. As
an optional second parameter, you can pass a $cache id, see the caching section for more information.
As an optional third parameter, you can pass a $compile_id. This is in the event that you want tocompile different versions of the same template, such as having separate templates compiled for different
languages. Another use for $compile_id is when you use more than one $template_dir but only
one $compile_dir. Set a separate $compile_id for each $template_dir, otherwise templatesof the same name will overwrite each other. You can also set the $compile_id variable once insteadof passing this to each call to this function.

Example 13.14. fetch()<?php
include('Smarty.class.php');$smarty = new Smarty;$smarty->caching = true;// only do db calls if cache doesn't exist
if(!$smarty->is_cached('index.tpl')) {// dummy up some data
$address = '245 N 50th';$db_data = array('City' => 'Lincoln','State' => 'Nebraska','Zip' => '68502');$smarty->assign('Name','Fred');$smarty->assign('Address',$address);$smarty->assign($db_data);}// capture the output$output = $smarty->fetch('index.tpl');// do something with $output hereecho $output;?>163

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Example 13.15. Using fetch() to send an email
The email_body.tpl template

Dear {$contact.name},
Welcome and thankyou for signing up as a member of our user group,
Click on the link below to login with your user name of '{$contact.login_id}'
so you can post in our forums.
http://{$smarty.server.SERVER_NAME}/login/
List master
Some user group{include file='email_disclaimer.tpl'}

The email_disclaimer.tpl template which uses the {textformat} modifier.

{textformat wrap=40}
Unless you are named "{$contact.name}", you may read only the "odd numbered
words" (every other word beginning with the first) of the message above. If you hav
violated that, then you hereby owe the sender 10 GBP for each evennumbered word you have read{/textformat}

The php script using the PHP mail() [http://php.net/function.mail] function<?php// get contact from database eg using pear or adodb$query = 'select name, email, login_id from contacts where contact_id='.$contact_i$contact = $db->getRow($sql);$smarty->assign('contact', $contact);
mail($contact['email'], 'Subject', $smarty->fetch('email_body.tpl'));?>See also {fetch} display(), {eval}, and template_exists().

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Name
get_config_vars() — returns the given loaded config variable value

Description
array get_config_vars(string varname);
If no parameter is given, an array of all loaded config variables is returned.

Example 13.16. get_config_vars()<?php// get loaded config template var #foo#$myVar = $smarty->get_config_vars('foo');// get all loaded config template vars
$all_config_vars = $smarty->get_config_vars();// take a look at them
print_r($all_config_vars);?>

See also clear_config(), {config_load}, config_load() and get_template_vars().

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Name
get_registered_object() — returns a reference to a registered object

Description
array get_registered_object(string object_name);
This is useful from within a custom function when you need direct access to a registered object. See theobjects page for more info.

Example 13.17. get_registered_object()<?php
function smarty_block_foo($params, &$smarty){
if (isset($params['object'])) {// get reference to registered object$obj_ref = &$smarty->get_registered_object($params['object']);// use $obj_ref is now a reference to the object}}?>

See also register_object(), unregister_object() and objects page

166

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Name
get_template_vars() — returns assigned variable value(s)Description
array get_template_vars(string varname);
If no parameter is given, an array of all assigned variables are returned.

Example 13.18. get_template_vars<?php// get assigned template var 'foo'$myVar = $smarty->get_template_vars('foo');// get all assigned template vars
$all_tpl_vars = $smarty->get_template_vars();// take a look at them
print_r($all_tpl_vars);?>

See also assign(), {assign}, append(), clear_assign(), clear_all_assign() and
get_config_vars()

167

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Name
is_cached() — returns true if there is a valid cache for this template

Descriptionbool is_cached(string template,string cache_id,
string compile_id);• This only works if $caching is set to TRUE, see the caching section for more info.
• You can also pass a $cache_id as an optional second parameter in case you want multiple caches
for the given template.
• You can supply a $compile id as an optional third parameter. If you omit that parameter thepersistent $compile_id is used if its set.
• If you do not want to pass a $cache_id but want to pass a $compile_id you have to pass NULL
as a $cache_id.

Technical Note
If is_cached() returns TRUE it actually loads the cached output and stores it internally. Any
subsequent call to display() or fetch() will return this internally stored output and does
not try to reload the cache file. This prevents a race condition that may occur when a second
process clears the cache between the calls to is_cached() and to display() in the example
above. This also means calls to clear_cache() and other changes of the cache-settings may
have no effect after is_cached() returned TRUE.

Example 13.19. is_cached()<?php$smarty->caching = true;
if(!$smarty->is_cached('index.tpl')) {// do database calls, assign vars here}
$smarty->display('index.tpl');?>168

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Example 13.20. is_cached() with multiple-cache template<?php$smarty->caching = true;
if(!$smarty->is_cached('index.tpl', 'FrontPage')) {// do database calls, assign vars here}
$smarty->display('index.tpl', 'FrontPage');?>See also clear_cache(), clear_all_cache(), and caching section.

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Nameload_filter() — load a filter plugin

Description
void load_filter(string type,string name);
The first argument specifies the type of the filter to load and can be one of the following: pre, post or
output. The second argument specifies the name of the filter plugin.

Example 13.21. Loading filter plugins<?php// load prefilter named 'trim'$smarty->load_filter('pre', 'trim');// load another prefilter named 'datefooter'$smarty->load_filter('pre', 'datefooter');// load output filter named 'compress'$smarty->load_filter('output', 'compress');
?>

See
also
register_prefilter(),register_postfilter(),register_outputfilter(), $autoload_filters and advanced features.

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Nameregister_block() — dynamically register block functions plugins

Description
void register_block(string name,mixed impl,
bool cacheable,
mixed cache_attrs);
Use this to dynamically register block function plugins. Pass in the block function name, followed by the
PHP function's name that implements it.
The php-function callback function can be either:• A string containing the function name• An array of the form array(&$object, $method) with &$object being a reference to an object
and $method being a string containing the method-name• An array of the form array($class,$method being a method of the class.

$method) with $class being the class name andcacheable and cache_attrs can be omitted in most cases. See controlling cacheability of plugins'
output section on how to implement them properly.

Example 13.22. register_block()<?php// function declaration
function do_translation ($params, $content, &$smarty, &$repeat){
if (isset($content)) {$lang = $params['lang'];// do some translation with $content
return $translation;}}// register with smarty$smarty->register_block('translate', 'do_translation');?>

Where the template is:{translate lang='br'}Hello, world!{/translate}

171

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See also unregister_block() and the plugin block functions page.

172

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Nameregister_compiler_function() — dynamically register a compiler function plugin

Descriptionbool register_compiler_function(string name,mixed impl,
bool cacheable);
Pass in the compiler function name, followed by the PHP function that implements it.
The php-function callback function can be either:• A string containing the function name• An array of the form array(&$object, $method) with &$object being a reference to an object
and $method being a string containing the method-name• An array of the form array($class,$method being a method of the class.

$method) with $class being the class name andcacheable can be omitted in most cases. See controlling cacheability of plugin output on how to use
it properly.
See also unregister_compiler_function() and the plugin compiler functions section.

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Nameregister_function() — dynamically register template function plugins

Description
void register_function(string name,mixed impl,
bool cacheable,
mixed cache_attrs);
Pass in the template function name, followed by the PHP function name that implements it.
The php-function callback function can be either:• A string containing the function name• An array of the form array(&$object, $method) with &$object being a reference to an object
and $method being a string containing the method-name• An array of the form array($class,$method being a method of the class.

$method) with $class being the class name andcacheable and cache_attrs can be omitted in most cases. See controlling cacheability of plugins
output on how to use them properly.

Example 13.23. register_function()<?php$smarty->register_function('date_now', 'print_current_date');function print_current_date($params, &$smarty){
if(empty($params['format'])) {$format = "%b %e, %Y";
} else {$format = $params['format'];}return strftime($format,time());}?>

And in the template{date_now}{* or to format differently *}{date_now format="%Y/%m/%d"}174

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See also unregister_function() and the plugin functions section.

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Nameregister_modifier() — dynamically register modifier plugin

Description
void register_modifier(string name,mixed impl);
Pass in the template modifier name, followed by the PHP function that it implements it.
The php-function callback function can be either:• A string containing the function name• An array of the form array(&$object, $method) with &$object being a reference to an object
and $method being a string containing the method-name• An array of the form array($class,$method being a method of the class.

$method) with $class being the class name andExample 13.24. register_modifier()<?php// let's map PHP's stripslashes function to a Smarty modifier.
$smarty->register_modifier('ss', 'stripslashes');?>In the template, use ss to strip slashes.

<?php{$var|ss}?>

See also unregister_modifier(), register_function(), modifiers section, extending
Smarty with plugins and creating plugin modifiers,

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Nameregister_object() — register an object for use in the templates

Description
void register_object(string object_name,object object,array allowed_methods_properties,
boolean format,
array block_methods);
See the objects section for more information.
See also get_registered_object(), and unregister_object().

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Nameregister_outputfilter() — dynamically register outputfilters

Description
void register_outputfilter(mixed function);
Use this to dynamically register outputfilters to operate on a template's output before it is displayed. See
template output filters for more information on how to set up an output filter function.
The php-function callback function can be either:• A string containing the function name• An array of the form array(&$object, $method) with &$object being a reference to an object
and $method being a string containing the method-name• An array of the form array($class,$method being a method of the class.

$method) with $class being the class name andTechnical Note
If the chosen function callback is of the form array(&$object, $method), only one
instance of the same class and with the same $method can be registered. The latest registeredfunction callback will be used in such a scenario.
See also unregister_outputfilter(), load_filter(), $autoload_filters and thetemplate output filters section.

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Nameregister_postfilter() — dynamically register postfilters

Description
void register_postfilter(mixed function);
Use this to dynamically register postfilters to run templates through after they are compiled. See template
postfilters for more information on how to setup a postfiltering function.
The php-function callback function can be either:• A string containing the function name• An array of the form array(&$object, $method) with &$object being a reference to an object
and $method being a string containing the method-name• An array of the form array($class,$method being a method of the class.

$method) with $class being the class name andTechnical Note
If the chosen function callback is of the form array(&$object, $method), only one
instance of the same class and with the same $method can be registered. The latest registeredfunction callback will be used in such a scenario.
See also
unregister_postfilter(),register_prefilter(), load_filter(),$autoload_filters and the template output filters section.

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Nameregister_prefilter() — dynamically register prefilters

Description
void register_prefilter(mixed function);
Use this to dynamically register prefilters to run templates through before they are compiled. See template
prefilters for more information on how to setup a prefiltering function.
The php-function callback function can be either:• A string containing the function name• An array of the form array(&$object, $method) with &$object being a reference to an object
and $method being a string containing the method-name• An array of the form array($class,$method being a method of the class.

$method) with $class being the class name andTechnical Note
If the chosen function callback is of the form array(&$object, $method), only one
instance of the same class and with the same $method can be registered. The latest registeredfunction callback will be used in such a scenario.
See
also
unregister_prefilter(),register_postfilter(),register_ouputfilter(), load_filter(), $autoload_filters and template output
filters section.

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Nameregister_resource() — dynamically register resources

Description
void register_resource(string name,array resource_funcs);
Use this to dynamically register a resource plugin with Smarty. Pass in the name of the resource and thearray of PHP functions implementing it. See template resources for more information on how to setup afunction for fetching templates.

Technical Note
A resource name must be at least two characters in length. One character resource names willbe ignored and used as part of the file path, such as $smarty->display('c:/path/to/
index.tpl');• The php-function-array resource_funcs must have 4 or 5 elements.
• With 4 elements the elements are the functions-callbacks for the respective source, timestamp,
secure and trusted functions of the resource.
• With 5 elements the first element has to be an object reference or a class name of the object or classimplementing the resource and the 4 following elements have to be the method names implementing
source, timestamp, secure and trusted.

Example 13.25. register_resource()<?php$smarty->register_resource('db', array('db_get_template','db_get_timestamp','db_get_secure','db_get_trusted'));?>

See also unregister_resource() and the template resources section.

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Nametrigger_error() — output an error message

Description
void trigger_error(string error_msg,
int level);This function can be used to output an error message using Smarty. level parameter can be oneof the values used for the PHP trigger_error() [http://php.net/trigger_error] function, eg:
E_USER_NOTICE, E_USER_WARNING, etc. By default it's E_USER_WARNING.
See also $error_reporting, debugging and troubleshooting.

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Nametemplate_exists() — checks whether the specified template exists

Descriptionbool template_exists(string template);
It can accept either a path to the template on the filesystem or a resource string specifying the template.

Example 13.26. template_exists()
This example uses $_GET['page'] to {include} a content template. If the template does not exist
then an error page is displayed instead. First the page_container.tpl<html><head><title>{$title}</title></head><body>{include file='page_top.tpl'}{* include middle content page *}{include file=$content_template}{include file='page_footer.tpl'}</body>And the php script<?php// set the filename eg index.inc.tpl$mid_template = $_GET['page'].'.inc.tpl';
if( !$smarty->template_exists($mid_template) ){$mid_template = 'page_not_found.tpl';}$smarty->assign('content_template', $mid_template);$smarty->display('page_container.tpl');?>See also display(), fetch(), {include} and {insert}

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Name
unregister_block() — dynamically unregister block function plugins

Description
void unregister_block(string name);Use this to dynamically unregister block function plugin. Pass in the block function name.
See also register_block() and block functions plugins.

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Name
unregister_compiler_function() — dynamically unregister a compiler function

Description
void unregister_compiler_function(string name);
Pass in the name of the compiler function.
See also register_compiler_function() and plugin compiler functions.

185

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Name
unregister_function — dynamically unregister template function plugin

Description
void unregister_function(string name);
Pass in the template function name.

Example 13.27. unregister_function<?php// we don't want template designers to have access to system files$smarty->unregister_function('fetch');?>See also register_function().

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Name
unregister_modifier() — dynamically unregister modifier plugin

Description
void unregister_modifier(string name);
Pass in the template modifier name.

Example 13.28. unregister_modifier()<?php// we don't want template designers to strip tags from elements$smarty->unregister_modifier('strip_tags');?>

See also register_modifier() and plugin modifiers,

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Name
unregister_object() — dynamically unregister an object

Description
void unregister_object(string object_name);
See also register_object() and objects section

188

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Name
unregister_outputfilter() — dynamically unregister an output filter

Description
void unregister_outputfilter(string function_name);Use this to dynamically unregister an output filter.
See also register_outputfilter() and template output filters.

189

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Name
unregister_postfilter() — dynamically unregister a postfilter

Description
void unregister_postfilter(string function_name);
See also register_postfilter() and template post filters.

190

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Name
unregister_prefilter() — dynamically unregister a prefilter

Description
void unregister_prefilter(string function_name);
See also register_prefilter() and pre filters.

191

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Name
unregister_resource() — dynamically unregister a resource plugin

Description
void unregister_resource(string name);
Pass in the name of the resource.

Example 13.29. unregister_resource()<?php$smarty->unregister_resource('db');?>

See also register_resource() and template resources

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Chapter 14. Caching
Caching is used to speed up a call to display() or fetch() by saving its output to a file. If a cachedversion of the call is available, that is displayed instead of regenerating the output. Caching can speed things
up tremendously, especially templates with longer computation times. Since the output of display()or fetch() is cached, one cache file could conceivably be made up of several template files, config
files, etc.
Since templates are dynamic, it is important to be careful what you are caching and for how long. For
instance, if you are displaying the front page of your website that does not change its content very often,
it might work well to cache this page for an hour or more. On the other hand, if you are displaying a page
with a timetable containing new information by the minute, it would not make sense to cache this page.

Setting Up Caching
The first thing to do is enable caching by setting $caching = 1 (or 2).

Example 14.1. Enabling caching<?php
require('Smarty.class.php');$smarty = new Smarty;$smarty->caching = 1;
$smarty->display('index.tpl');?>With caching enabled, the function call to display('index.tpl') will render the template as usual,
but also saves a copy of its output to a file (a cached copy) in the $cache_dir. On the next call to
display('index.tpl'), the cached copy will be used instead of rendering the template again.

Technical Note
The files in the $cache_dir are named similar to the template name. Although they end in the.php extention, they are not intended to be directly executable. Do not edit these files!
Each cached page has a limited lifetime determined by $cache_lifetime. The default value is 3600
seconds ie an hour. After that time expires, the cache is regenerated. It is possible to give individual caches
their own expiration time by setting $caching=2. See $cache_lifetime for more details.

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Example 14.2. Setting $cache_lifetime per cache<?phprequire('Smarty.class.php');$smarty = new Smarty;$smarty->caching = 2; // lifetime is per cache// set the cache_lifetime for index.tpl to 5 minutes$smarty->cache_lifetime = 300;
$smarty->display('index.tpl');// set the cache_lifetime for home.tpl to 1 hour$smarty->cache_lifetime = 3600;$smarty->display('home.tpl');// NOTE: the following $cache_lifetime setting will not work when $caching = 2.
// The cache lifetime for home.tpl has already been set// to 1 hour, and will no longer respect the value of $cache_lifetime.
// The home.tpl cache will still expire after 1 hour.
$smarty->cache_lifetime = 30; // 30 seconds$smarty->display('home.tpl');?>If $compile_check is enabled, every template file and config file that is involved with the cache file ischecked for modification. If any of the files have been modified since the cache was generated, the cache isimmediately regenerated. This is a slight overhead so for optimum performance, set $compile_checkto FALSE.

Example 14.3. Enabling $compile_check<?php
require('Smarty.class.php');$smarty = new Smarty;$smarty->caching = 1;
$smarty->compile_check = true;$smarty->display('index.tpl');?>If $force_compile is enabled, the cache files will always be regenerated. This effectively turns offcaching. $force_compile is usually for debugging purposes only, a more efficient way of disablingcaching is to set $caching = 0.
The is_cached() function can be used to test if a template has a valid cache or not. If you have acached template that requires something like a database fetch, you can use this to skip that process.

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Example 14.4. Using is_cached()<?php
require('Smarty.class.php');$smarty = new Smarty;$smarty->caching = 1;
if(!$smarty->is_cached('index.tpl')) {// No cache available, do variable assignments here.
$contents = get_database_contents();$smarty->assign($contents);}$smarty->display('index.tpl');?>You can keep parts of a page dynamic with the {insert} template function. Let's say the whole page canbe cached except for a banner that is displayed down the side of the page. By using the {insert} function
for the banner, you can keep this element dynamic within the cached content. See the documentation on{insert} for more details and examples.
You can clear all the cache files with the clear_all_cache() function, or individual cache files andgroups with the clear_cache() function.

Example 14.5. Clearing the cache<?phprequire('Smarty.class.php');$smarty = new Smarty;$smarty->caching = 1;// clear only cache for index.tpl$smarty->clear_cache('index.tpl');// clear out all cache files$smarty->clear_all_cache();$smarty->display('index.tpl');?>Multiple Caches Per Page
You can have multiple cache files for a single call to display() or fetch(). Let's say that a call to
display('index.tpl') may have several different output contents depending on some condition,

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and you want separate caches for each one. You can do this by passing a $cache_id as the second
parameter to the function call.

Example 14.6. Passing a $cache_id to display()<?php
require('Smarty.class.php');$smarty = new Smarty;$smarty->caching = 1;
$my_cache_id = $_GET['article_id'];$smarty->display('index.tpl', $my_cache_id);?>

Above, we are passing the variable $my_cache_id to display() as the $cache_id. For eachunique value of $my_cache_id, a separate cache will be generated for index.tpl. In this example,
article_id was passed in the URL and is used as the $cache_id.

Technical Note
Be very cautious when passing values from a client (web browser) into Smarty or any PHP
application. Although the above example of using the article_id from the URL looks handy, it
could have bad consequences. The $cache_id is used to create a directory on the file system,
so if the user decided to pass an extremely large value for article_id, or write a script that sends
random article_id's at a rapid pace, this could possibly cause problems at the server level. Be sure
to sanitize any data passed in before using it. In this instance, maybe you know the article_id has
a length of ten characters and is made up of alpha-numerics only, and must be a valid article_id
in the database. Check for this!
Be sure to pass the same $cache_id as the second parameter to is_cached() and clear_cache().

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Example 14.7. Passing a cache_id to is_cached()<?php
require('Smarty.class.php');$smarty = new Smarty;$smarty->caching = 1;
$my_cache_id = $_GET['article_id'];if(!$smarty->is_cached('index.tpl',$my_cache_id)) {// No cache available, do variable assignments here.
$contents = get_database_contents();$smarty->assign($contents);}$smarty->display('index.tpl',$my_cache_id);?>

You can clear all caches for a particular $cache_id by passing NULL as the first parameter toclear_cache().

Example 14.8. Clearing all caches for a particular $cache_id<?php
require('Smarty.class.php');$smarty = new Smarty;$smarty->caching = 1;// clear all caches with "sports" as the $cache_id$smarty->clear_cache(null,'sports');$smarty->display('index.tpl','sports');?>

In this manner, you can “group” your caches together by giving them the same $cache_id.

Cache Groups
You can do more elaborate grouping by setting up $cache_id groups. This is accomplished byseparating each sub-group with a vertical bar | in the $cache_id value. You can have as many subgroups as you like.
• You can think of cache groups like a directory hierarchy. For instance, a cache group of 'a|b|c'
could be thought of as the directory structure '/a/b/c/'.

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Caching• clear_cache(null,'a|b|c') would be like removing the files
clear_cache(null,'a|b') would be like removing the files '/a/b/*'.

'/a/b/c/*'.

• If you specify a $compile_id such as clear_cache(null,'a|b','foo') it is treated as anappended cache group '/a/b/c/foo/'.
• If you specify a template name such as clear_cache('foo.tpl','a|b|c') then Smarty willattempt to remove '/a/b/c/foo.tpl'.
• You CANNOT remove a specified template name under multiple cache groups such as '/a/b/*/foo.tpl', the cache grouping works left-to-right ONLY. You will need to group your templates undera single cache group heirarchy to be able to clear them as a group.
Cache grouping should not be confused with your template directory heirarchy, the cache grouping
has no knowledge of how your templates are structured. So for example, if you have a template
structure like themes/blue/index.tpl and you want to be able to clear all the cache files forthe “blue” theme, you will need to create a cache group structure that mimics your template filestructure, such as display('themes/blue/index.tpl','themes|blue'), then clear themwith clear_cache(null,'themes|blue').

Example 14.9. $cache_id groups<?php
require('Smarty.class.php');$smarty = new Smarty;$smarty->caching = true;// clear all caches with 'sports|basketball' as the first two cache_id groups$smarty->clear_cache(null,'sports|basketball');// clear all caches with "sports" as the first cache_id group. This would// include "sports|basketball", or "sports|(anything)|(anything)|(anything)|..."$smarty->clear_cache(null,'sports');// clear the foo.tpl cache file with "sports|basketball" as the cache_id$smarty->clear_cache('foo.tpl','sports|basketball');$smarty->display('index.tpl','sports|basketball');?>

Controlling Cacheability of Plugins' Output
Since Smarty-2.6.0 plugins the cacheability of plugins can be declared when registering them.
The third parameter to register_block(),register_compiler_function() andregister_function() is called $cacheable and defaults to TRUE which is also the behaviour ofplugins in Smarty versions before 2.6.0

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When registering a plugin with $cacheable=false the plugin is called everytime the page isdisplayed, even if the page comes from the cache. The plugin function behaves a little like an {insert}
function.
In contrast to {insert} the attributes to the plugins are not cached by default. They can be declared tobe cached with the fourth parameter $cache_attrs. $cache_attrs is an array of attribute-namesthat should be cached, so the plugin-function get value as it was the time the page was written to cache
everytime it is fetched from the cache.

Example 14.10. Preventing a plugin's output from being cached<?php$smarty->caching = true;
function remaining_seconds($params, &$smarty) {$remain = $params['endtime'] - time();if($remain >= 0){
return $remain . ' second(s)';}else{
return 'done';}}$smarty->register_function('remaining', 'remaining_seconds', false, array('endtime'if (!$smarty->is_cached('index.tpl')) {// fetch $obj from db and assign...
$smarty->assign_by_ref('obj', $obj);}$smarty->display('index.tpl');?>where index.tpl is:Time Remaining: {remaining endtime=$obj->endtime}

The number of seconds till the endtime of $obj is reached changes on each display of the page, even if
the page is cached. Since the endtime attribute is cached the object only has to be pulled from the databasewhen page is written to the cache but not on subsequent requests of the page.

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Example 14.11. Preventing a whole passage of a template from being cachedindex.php:<?php$smarty->caching = 1;function smarty_block_dynamic($param, $content, &$smarty) {return $content;}$smarty->register_block('dynamic', 'smarty_block_dynamic', false);$smarty->display('index.tpl');?>where index.tpl is:

Page created: {'0'|date_format:'%D %H:%M:%S'}{dynamic}
Now is: {'0'|date_format:'%D %H:%M:%S'}... do other stuff ...
{/dynamic}

When reloading the page you will notice that both dates differ. One is “dynamic” one is “static”. You
can do everything between {dynamic}...{/dynamic} and be sure it will not be cached like the restof the page.

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Chapter 15. Advanced Features
Objects
Smarty allows access to PHP objects [http://php.net/object] through the templates. There are two ways
to access them.
• One way is to register objects to the template, then use access them via syntax similar to custom
functions.
• The other way is to assign() objects to the templates and access them much like any other assigned
variable.
The first method has a much nicer template syntax. It is also more secure, as a registered object canbe restricted to certain methods or properties. However, a registered object cannot be looped over orassigned in arrays of objects, etc. The method you choose will be determined by your needs, but use thefirst method whenever possible to keep template syntax to a minimum.
If $security is enabled, no private methods or functions can be accessed (begininning with '_'). If amethod and property of the same name exist, the method will be used.
You can restrict the methods and properties that can be accessed by listing them in an array as the third
registration parameter.
By default, parameters passed to objects through the templates are passed the same way custom functions
get them. An associative array is passed as the first parameter, and the smarty object as the second. If you
want the parameters passed one at a time for each argument like traditional object parameter passing, set
the fourth registration parameter to FALSE.
The optional fifth parameter has only effect with format being TRUE and contains a list of methods thatshould be treated as blocks. That means these methods have a closing tag in the template ({foobar>meth2}...{/foobar->meth2}) and the parameters to the methods have the same synopsis as theparameters for block-function-plugins: They get the four parameters $params, $content,&$smarty and &$repeat and they also behave like block-function-plugins.

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Example 15.1. Using a registered or assigned object<?php// the object
class My_Object {function meth1($params, &$smarty_obj) {return 'this is my meth1';}}$myobj = new My_Object;// registering the object (will be by reference)$smarty->register_object('foobar',$myobj);// if we want to restrict access to certain methods or properties, list them$smarty->register_object('foobar',$myobj,array('meth1','meth2','prop1'));// if you want to use the traditional object parameter format, pass a boolean of fa$smarty->register_object('foobar',$myobj,null,false);// We can also assign objects. assign_by_ref when possible.
$smarty->assign_by_ref('myobj', $myobj);$smarty->display('index.tpl');?>And here's how to access your objects in index.tpl:{* access our registered object *}{foobar->meth1 p1='foo' p2=$bar}{* you can also assign the output *}{foobar->meth1 p1='foo' p2=$bar assign='output'}the output was {$output}{* access our assigned object *}{$myobj->meth1('foo',$bar)}

See also register_object() and assign().

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Prefilters
Template prefilters are PHP functions that your templates are ran through before they are compiled. Thisis good for preprocessing your templates to remove unwanted comments, keeping an eye on what people
are putting in their templates, etc.
Prefilters can be either registered or loaded from the plugins directory by using load_filter()function or by setting the $autoload_filters variable.
Smarty will pass the template source code as the first argument, and expect the function to return the
resulting template source code.

Example 15.2. Using a template prefilter
This will remove all the html comments in the template source.

<?php// put this in your application
function remove_dw_comments($tpl_source, &$smarty){
return preg_replace("/<!--#.*-->/U",'',$tpl_source);}// register the prefilter$smarty->register_prefilter('remove_dw_comments');$smarty->display('index.tpl');?>See also register_prefilter(), postfilters and load_filter().

Postfilters
Template postfilters are PHP functions that your templates are ran through after they are compiled.
Postfilters can be either registered or loaded from the plugins directory by using the load_filter()function or by setting the $autoload_filters variable. Smarty will pass the compiled template code
as the first argument, and expect the function to return the result of the processing.

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Example 15.3. Using a template postfilter<?php// put this in your application
function add_header_comment($tpl_source, &$smarty){
return "<?php echo \"<!-- Created by Smarty! -->\n\"; ?>\n".$tpl_source;}// register the postfilter$smarty->register_postfilter('add_header_comment');$smarty->display('index.tpl');?>

The postfilter above will make the compiled Smarty template index.tpl look like:<!-- Created by Smarty! -->{* rest of template content... *}See also register_postfilter(), prefilters, outputfilters, and load_filter().

Output Filters
When the template is invoked via display() or fetch(), its output can be sent through one or more
output filters. This differs from postfilters because postfilters operate on compiled templates before
they are saved to the disk, whereas output filters operate on the template output when it is executed.
Output filters can be either registered or loaded from the plugins directory by using the load_filter()method or by setting the $autoload_filters variable. Smarty will pass the template output as thefirst argument, and expect the function to return the result of the processing.

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Example 15.4. Using a template outputfilter<?php// put this in your application
function protect_email($tpl_output, &$smarty){$tpl_output =preg_replace('!(\S+)@([a-zA-Z0-9\.\-]+\.([a-zA-Z]{2,3}|[0-9]{1,3}))!','$1%40$2', $tpl_output);
return $tpl_output;}// register the outputfilter$smarty->register_outputfilter('protect_email');$smarty->display('index.tpl');// now any occurrence of an email address in the template output will have// a simple protection against spambots?>

See also register_outputfilter(), load_filter(), $autoload_filters, postfilters
and $plugins_dir.

Cache Handler Function
As an alternative to using the default file-based caching mechanism, you can specify a custom cachehandling function that will be used to read, write and clear cached files.
Create a function in your application that Smarty will use as a cache handler. Set the name of it in the$cache_handler_func class variable. Smarty will now use this to handle cached data.
• The first argument is the action, which will be one of read, write and clear.
• The second parameter is the Smarty object.
• The third parameter is the cached content. Upon a write, Smarty passes the cached content in theseparameters. Upon a read, Smarty expects your function to accept this parameter by reference andpopulate it with the cached data. Upon a clear, pass a dummy variable here since it is not used.
• The fourth parameter is the name of the template file, needed for read/write.
• The fifth parameter is the optional $cache_id.
• The sixth is the optional $compile_id.
• The seventh and last parameter $exp_time was added in Smarty-2.6.0.

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switch ($action) {case 'read':// read cache from database
Advanced Features$results = mysql_query("selectCacheContents from CACHE_PAGES where CacheID='$Ca
if(!$results) {$smarty_obj->_trigger_error_msg('cache_handler: query failed.');}Example15.5. Example using MySQL as a cache source$row = mysql_fetch_array($results,MYSQL_ASSOC);
if($use_gzip && function_exists('gzuncompress')) {$cache_content = gzuncompress($row['CacheContents']);} else {$cache_content = $row['CacheContents'];}$return = $results;
break;
case 'write':// save cache to databaseif($use_gzip && function_exists("gzcompress")) {// compress the contents for storage efficiency$contents = gzcompress($cache_content);} else {$contents = $cache_content;}$results = mysql_query("replace into CACHE_PAGES values('$CacheID','".addslashes($contents)."')");
if(!$results) {$smarty_obj->_trigger_error_msg('cache_handler: query failed.');}$return = $results;
break;
case 'clear':// clear cache info
if(empty($cache_id) && empty($compile_id) && empty($tpl_file)) {// clear them all$results = mysql_query('delete from CACHE_PAGES');} else {$results = mysql_query("delete from CACHE_PAGES where CacheID='$CacheID'");}if(!$results) {$smarty_obj->_trigger_error_msg('cache_handler: query failed.');}$return = $results;
break;
default:// error, unknown action$smarty_obj->_trigger_error_msg("cache_handler: unknown action \"$action\"");$return = false;
break;}
mysql_close($link);
return $return;
}
?>

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Resources
The templates may come from a variety of sources. When you display() or fetch() a template,or when you include a template from within another template, you supply a resource type, followedby the appropriate path and template name. If a resource is not explicitly given the value of$default_resource_type is assumed.

Templates from $template_dir
Templates from the $template_dir do not require a template resource, although you can use thefile: resource for consistancy. Just supply the path to the template you want to use relative to the$template_dir root directory.

Example 15.6. Using templates from the $template_dir<?php$smarty->display('index.tpl');$smarty->display('admin/menu.tpl');$smarty->display('file:admin/menu.tpl'); // same as one above?>

From within a Smarty template{include file='index.tpl'}{* below is same as above *}{include file='file:index.tpl'}

Templates from any directory
Templates outside of the $template_dir require the file: template resource type, followed by theabsolute path to the template.

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Example 15.7. Using templates from any directory<?php$smarty->display('file:/export/templates/index.tpl');$smarty->display('file:/path/to/my/templates/menu.tpl');?>And from within a Smarty template:{include file='file:/usr/local/share/templates/navigation.tpl'}

Windows Filepaths
If you are using a Windows machine, filepaths usually include a drive letter (C:) at the beginning of thepathname. Be sure to use file: in the path to avoid namespace conflicts and get the desired results.

Example 15.8. Using templates from windows file paths<?php$smarty->display('file:C:/export/templates/index.tpl');$smarty->display('file:F:/path/to/my/templates/menu.tpl');?>And from within Smarty template:{include file='file:D:/usr/local/share/templates/navigation.tpl'}

Templates from other sources
You can retrieve templates using whatever possible source you can access with PHP: databases, sockets,
LDAP, and so on. You do this by writing resource plugin functions and registering them with Smarty.
See resource plugins section for more information on the functions you are supposed to provide.

Note
Note that you cannot override the built-in file: resource, but you can provide a resource that
fetches templates from the file system in some other way by registering under another resource
name.

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Example 15.9. Using custom resources<?php// put these function somewhere in your application
function db_get_template ($tpl_name, &$tpl_source, &$smarty_obj){// do database call here to fetch your template,// populating $tpl_source with actual template contents$tpl_source = "This is the template text";// return true on success, false to generate failure notification
return true;}
function db_get_timestamp($tpl_name, &$tpl_timestamp, &$smarty_obj){// do database call here to populate $tpl_timestamp// with unix epoch time value of last template modification.
// This is used to determine if recompile is necessary.
$tpl_timestamp = time(); // this example will always recompile!
// return true on success, false to generate failure notification
return true;}
function db_get_secure($tpl_name, &$smarty_obj){// assume all templates are secure
return true;}
function db_get_trusted($tpl_name, &$smarty_obj){// not used for templates}// register the resource name "db"$smarty->register_resource("db", array("db_get_template","db_get_timestamp","db_get_secure","db_get_trusted"));// using resource from php script$smarty->display("db:index.tpl");?>And from within Smarty template:{include file='db:/extras/navigation.tpl'}

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Default template handler function
You can specify a function that is used to retrieve template contents in the event the template cannot be
retrieved from its resource. One use of this is to create templates that do not exist on-the-fly.

Example 15.10. Using the default template handler function<?php// put this function somewhere in your application

function make_template ($resource_type, $resource_name, &$template_source, &$templa&$smarty_obj){
if( $resource_type == 'file' ) {if ( ! is_readable ( $resource_name )) {// create the template file, return contents.
$template_source = "This is a new template.";require_once SMARTY_CORE_DIR . 'core.write_file.php';
smarty_core_write_file( array( 'filename'=>$smarty_obj->template_dir .
return true;}} else {// not a file
return false;}}// set the default handler$smarty->default_template_handler_func = 'make_template';?>

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Chapter 16. Extending Smarty With
Plugins
Version 2.0 introduced the plugin architecture that is used for almost all the customizable functionality
of Smarty. This includes:• functions• modifiers• block functions• compiler functions• prefilters• postfilters• outputfilters• resources• inserts
With the exception of resources, backwards compatibility with the old way of registering handler functions
via register_* API is preserved. If you did not use the API but instead modified the class variables$custom_funcs, $custom_mods, and other ones directly, then you will need to adjust your scripts
to either use the API or convert your custom functionality into plugins.

How Plugins Work
Plugins are always loaded on demand. Only the specific modifiers, functions, resources, etc invoked in
the templates scripts will be loaded. Moreover, each plugin is loaded only once, even if you have several
different instances of Smarty running within the same request.
Pre/postfilters and output filters are a bit of a special case. Since they are not mentioned in the templates,
they must be registered or loaded explicitly via API functions before the template is processed. The orderin which multiple filters of the same type are executed depends on the order in which they are registeredor loaded.
The plugins directory can be a string containing a path or an array containing multiple paths. To install aplugin, simply place it in one of the directories and Smarty will use it automatically.

Naming Conventions
Plugin files and functions must follow a very specific naming convention in order to be located by Smarty.
plugin files must be named as follows:
type.name.php• Where type is one of these plugin types:• function• modifier• block• compiler

211

Extending Smarty With Plugins• prefilter• postfilter• outputfilter• resource• insert• And name should be a valid identifier; letters, numbers, and underscores only, see php variables [http://
php.net/language.variables].
• Someexamples:function.html_select_date.php,
modifier.spacify.php.

resource.db.php,

plugin functions inside the PHP files must be named as follows:
smarty_type, _name• The meanings of type and name are the same as above.
• An example modifier name foo would be function smarty_modifier_foo().
Smarty will output appropriate error messages if the plugin file it needs is not found, or if the file or theplugin function are named improperly.

Writing Plugins
Plugins can be either loaded by Smarty automatically from the filesystem or they can be registered atruntime via one of the register_* API functions. They can also be unregistered by using unregister_* APIfunctions.
For the plugins that are registered at runtime, the name of the plugin function(s) does not have to follow
the naming convention.
If a plugin depends on some functionality provided by another plugin (as is the case with some plugins
bundled with Smarty), then the proper way to load the needed plugin is this:<?phprequire_once $smarty->_get_plugin_filepath('function', 'html_options');?>

As a general rule, Smarty object is always passed to the plugins as the last parameter with two exceptions:• modifiers do not get passed the Smarty object at all• blocks get passed $repeat after the Smarty object to keep backwards compatibility to older versionsof Smarty.

Template Functions
void smarty_function_name($params, &$smarty);212

Extending Smarty With Plugins

array $params;
object &$smarty;
All attributes passed to template functions from the template are contained in the $params as an
associative array.
The output (return value) of the function will be substituted in place of the function tag in the template,eg the {fetch} function. Alternatively, the function can simply perform some other task without any
output, eg the {assign} function.
If the function needs to assign some variables to the template or use some other Smarty-provided
functionality, it can use the supplied $smarty object to do so eg $smarty->foo().

Example 16.1. function plugin with output

<?php
/*
* Smarty plugin* ------------------------------------------------------------* File:function.eightball.php* Type:function* Name:eightball* Purpose: outputs a random magic answer* ------------------------------------------------------------*/
function smarty_function_eightball($params, &$smarty){$answers = array('Yes','No','No way','Outlook not so good','Ask again soon','Maybe in your reality');$result = array_rand($answers);
return $answers[$result];}?>which can be used in the template as:

Question: Will we ever have time travel?
Answer: {eightball}.

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Example 16.2. function plugin without output

<?php
/*
* Smarty plugin* ------------------------------------------------------------* File:function.assign.php* Type:function* Name:assign* Purpose: assign a value to a template variable* ------------------------------------------------------------*/
function smarty_function_assign($params, &$smarty){
if (empty($params['var'])) {$smarty->trigger_error("assign: missing 'var' parameter");
return;}if (!in_array('value', array_keys($params))) {$smarty->trigger_error("assign: missing 'value' parameter");
return;}$smarty->assign($params['var'], $params['value']);}?>See also: register_function(), unregister_function().

Modifiers
Modifiers are little functions that are applied to a variable in the template before it is displayed or used insome other context. Modifiers can be chained together.
mixed smarty_modifier_name($value, $param1);
mixed $value;[mixed $param1, ...];
The first parameter to the modifier plugin is the value on which the modifier is to operate. The rest of theparameters are optional, depending on what kind of operation is to be performed.
The modifier has to return [http://php.net/return] the result of its processing.

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Example 16.3. A simple modifier plugin
This plugin basically aliases one of the built-in PHP functions. It does not have any additional parameters.

<?php
/*
* Smarty plugin* ------------------------------------------------------------* File:modifier.capitalize.php* Type:modifier* Name:capitalize* Purpose: capitalize words in the string* ------------------------------------------------------------*/
function smarty_modifier_capitalize($string){
return ucwords($string);
}
?>

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Example 16.4. More complex modifier plugin

<?php
/*
* Smarty plugin* ------------------------------------------------------------* File:modifier.truncate.php* Type:modifier* Name:truncate* Purpose: Truncate a string to a certain length if necessary,*
optionally splitting in the middle of a word, and*appending the $etc string.
* ------------------------------------------------------------*/
function smarty_modifier_truncate($string, $length = 80, $etc = '...',$break_words = false){
if ($length == 0)
return '';if (strlen($string) > $length) {$length -= strlen($etc);$fragment = substr($string, 0, $length+1);
if ($break_words)$fragment = substr($fragment, 0, -1);
else
$fragment = preg_replace('/\s+(\S+)?$/', '', $fragment);
return $fragment.$etc;} elsereturn $string;}?>

See also register_modifier(), unregister_modifier().

Block Functions
void smarty_block_name($params, $content, &$smarty, &$repeat);array $params;
mixed $content;
object &$smarty;
boolean &$repeat;
Block functions are functions of the form: {func} .. {/func}. In other words, they enclose a template
block and operate on the contents of this block. Block functions take precedence over custom functionsof the same name, that is, you cannot have both custom function {func} and block function {func}..
{/func}.
• By default your function implementation is called twice by Smarty: once for the opening tag, and once
for the closing tag. (See $repeat below on how to change this.)216

Extending Smarty With Plugins• Only the opening tag of the block function may have attributes. All attributes passed to template
functions from the template are contained in the $params variable as an associative array. The opening
tag attributes are also accessible to your function when processing the closing tag.
• The value of the $content variable depends on whether your function is called for the opening or
closing tag. In case of the opening tag, it will be NULL, and in case of the closing tag it will be thecontents of the template block. Note that the template block will have already been processed by Smarty,
so all you will receive is the template output, not the template source.
• The parameter $repeat is passed by reference to the function implementation and provides a
possibility for it to control how many times the block is displayed. By default $repeat is TRUE at thefirst call of the block-function (the opening tag) and FALSE on all subsequent calls to the block function(the block's closing tag). Each time the function implementation returns with $repeat being TRUE,
the contents between {func}...{/func} are evaluated and the function implementation is calledagain with the new block contents in the parameter $content.
If you have nested block functions, it's possible to find out what the parent block function is by accessing$smarty->_tag_stack variable. Just do a var_dump() [http://php.net/var_dump] on it and thestructure should be apparent.

Example 16.5. block function

<?php
/*
* Smarty plugin* ------------------------------------------------------------* File:block.translate.php* Type:block* Name:translate* Purpose: translate a block of text
* ------------------------------------------------------------*/
function smarty_block_translate($params, $content, &$smarty, &$repeat){// only output on the closing tag
if(!$repeat){if (isset($content)) {$lang = $params['lang'];// do some intelligent translation thing here with $content
return $translation;
}
}
}
?>

See also: register_block(), unregister_block().

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Compiler Functions
Compiler functions are called only during compilation of the template. They are useful for injecting PHP
code or time-sensitive static content into the template. If there is both a compiler function and a custom
function registered under the same name, the compiler function has precedence.
mixed smarty_compiler_name($tag_arg, &$smarty);
string $tag_arg;
object &$smarty;
The compiler function is passed two parameters: the tag argument string - basically, everything from thefunction name until the ending delimiter, and the Smarty object. It's supposed to return the PHP code to
be injected into the compiled template.

Example 16.6. A simple compiler function

<?php
/*
* Smarty plugin* ------------------------------------------------------------* File:compiler.tplheader.php* Type:compiler* Name:tplheader* Purpose: Output header containing the source file name and*the time it was compiled.
* ------------------------------------------------------------*/
function smarty_compiler_tplheader($tag_arg, &$smarty){
return "\necho '" . $smarty->_current_file . " compiled at " . date('Y-m-d H:M'}?>
This function can be called from the template as:{* this function gets executed at compile time only *}{tplheader}

The resulting PHP code in the compiled template would be something like this:<?phpecho 'index.tpl compiled at 2002-02-20 20:02';?>

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See also register_compiler_function(), unregister_compiler_function().

Prefilters/Postfilters
Prefilter and postfilter plugins are very similar in concept; where they differ is in the execution -- more
precisely the time of their execution.
string smarty_prefilter_name($source, &$smarty);
string $source;
object &$smarty;
Prefilters are used to process the source of the template immediately before compilation. The firstparameter to the prefilter function is the template source, possibly modified by some other prefilters. The
plugin is supposed to return the modified source. Note that this source is not saved anywhere, it is onlyused for compilation.
string smarty_postfilter_name($compiled, &$smarty);
string $compiled;object &$smarty;
Postfilters are used to process the compiled output of the template (the PHP code) immediately after thecompilation is done but before the compiled template is saved to the filesystem. The first parameter tothe postfilter function is the compiled template code, possibly modified by other postfilters. The plugin is
supposed to return the modified version of this code.

Example 16.7. prefilter plugin

<?php
/*
* Smarty plugin* ------------------------------------------------------------* File:prefilter.pre01.php* Type:prefilter* Name:pre01* Purpose: Convert html tags to be lowercase.
* ------------------------------------------------------------*/
function smarty_prefilter_pre01($source, &$smarty){
return preg_replace('!<(\w+)[^>]+>!e', 'strtolower("$1")', $source);
}
?>

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Example 16.8. postfilter plugin

<?php
/*
* Smarty plugin* ------------------------------------------------------------* File:postfilter.post01.php* Type:postfilter* Name:post01* Purpose: Output code that lists all current template vars.
* ------------------------------------------------------------*/
function smarty_postfilter_post01($compiled, &$smarty){$compiled = "<pre>\n<?php print_r(\$this->get_template_vars()); ?>\n</pre>" .
return $compiled;
}
?>

See
also
register_prefilter(),register_postfilter(), unregister_postfilter().

unregister_prefilter()

Output Filters
Output filter plugins operate on a template's output, after the template is loaded and executed, but before
the output is displayed.
string smarty_outputfilter_name($template_output, &$smarty);
string $template_output;
object &$smarty;
The first parameter to the output filter function is the template output that needs to be processed, andthe second parameter is the instance of Smarty invoking the plugin. The plugin is supposed to do theprocessing and return the results.

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Example 16.9. An output filter plugin

<?php
/*
* Smarty plugin* ------------------------------------------------------------* File:
outputfilter.protect_email.php* Type:outputfilter* Name:protect_email* Purpose: Converts @ sign in email addresses to %40 as*a simple protection against spambots* ------------------------------------------------------------*/
function smarty_outputfilter_protect_email($output, &$smarty){
return preg_replace('!(\S+)@([a-zA-Z0-9\.\-]+\.([a-zA-Z]{2,3}|[0-9]{1,3}))!','$1%40$2', $output);}?>

See also register_outputfilter(), unregister_outputfilter().

Resources
Resource plugins are meant as a generic way of providing template sources or PHP script components to
Smarty. Some examples of resources: databases, LDAP, shared memory, sockets, and so on.
There are a total of four functions that need to be registered for each type of resource. Every function will
receive the requested resource as the first parameter and the Smarty object as the last parameter. The restof parameters depend on the function.
bool smarty_resource_name_source($rsrc_name, &$source, &$smarty);
string $rsrc_name;string &$source;
object &$smarty;bool smarty_resource_name_timestamp($rsrc_name, &$timestamp, &$smarty);
string $rsrc_name;int &$timestamp;
object &$smarty;bool smarty_resource_name_secure($rsrc_name, &$smarty);
string $rsrc_name;object &$smarty;bool smarty_resource_name_trusted($rsrc_name, &$smarty);221

Extending Smarty With Plugins

string $rsrc_name;object &$smarty;• The first function, source() is supposed to retrieve the resource. Its second parameter $source is avariable passed by reference where the result should be stored. The function is supposed to return TRUE
if it was able to successfully retrieve the resource and FALSE otherwise.
• The second function, timestamp() is supposed to retrieve the last modification time of the requested
resource, as a UNIX timestamp. The second parameter $timestamp is a variable passed by reference
where the timestamp should be stored. The function is supposed to return TRUE if the timestamp could
be succesfully determined, or FALSE otherwise.
• The third function, secure()is supposed to return TRUE or FALSE, depending on whether therequested resource is secure or not. This function is used only for template resources but should still
be defined.
• The fourth function, trusted() is supposed to return TRUE or FALSE, depending on whether therequested resource is trusted or not. This function is used for only for PHP script components requestedby {include_php} tag or {insert} tag with the src attribute. However, it should still be definedeven for template resources.

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Example 16.10. resource plugin

<?php
/*
* Smarty plugin* ------------------------------------------------------------* File:resource.db.php* Type:resource* Name:db* Purpose: Fetches templates from a database* ------------------------------------------------------------*/
function smarty_resource_db_source($tpl_name, &$tpl_source, &$smarty){// do database call here to fetch your template,// populating $tpl_source with actual template contents$tpl_source = "This is the template text";// return true on success, false to generate failure notification
return true;}
function smarty_resource_db_timestamp($tpl_name, &$tpl_timestamp, &$smarty){// do database call here to populate $tpl_timestamp// with unix epoch time value of last template modification.
// This is used to determine if recompile is necessary.
$tpl_timestamp = time(); // this example will always recompile!
// return true on success, false to generate failure notification
return true;}
function smarty_resource_db_secure($tpl_name, &$smarty){// assume all templates are secure
return true;}
function smarty_resource_db_trusted($tpl_name, &$smarty){// not used for templates}?>

See also register_resource(), unregister_resource().

Inserts
Insert plugins are used to implement functions that are invoked by {insert} tags in the template.
string smarty_insert_name($params, &$smarty);223

Extending Smarty With Plugins

array $params;
object &$smarty;
The first parameter to the function is an associative array of attributes passed to the insert.
The insert function is supposed to return the result which will be substituted in place of the {insert}
tag in the template.

Example 16.11. insert plugin

<?php
/*
* Smarty plugin* ------------------------------------------------------------* File:insert.time.php* Type:time* Name:time* Purpose: Inserts current date/time according to format* ------------------------------------------------------------*/
function smarty_insert_time($params, &$smarty){
if (empty($params['format'])) {$smarty->trigger_error("insert time: missing 'format' parameter");
return;}return strftime($params['format']);
}
?>

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Part IV. AppendixesTable of Contents
17. Troubleshooting ......................................................................................................... 227
Smarty/PHP errors ................................................................................................... 227
18. Tips & Tricks ........................................................................................................... 229
Blank Variable Handling .......................................................................................... 229
Default Variable Handling ........................................................................................ 229
Passing variable title to header template ...................................................................... 230
Dates .................................................................................................................... 231
WAP/WML ............................................................................................................ 232
Componentized Templates ........................................................................................ 234
Obfuscating E-mail Addresses ................................................................................... 235
19. Resources ................................................................................................................. 236
20. BUGS ...................................................................................................................... 237

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Chapter 17. Troubleshooting
Smarty/PHP errors
Smarty can catch many errors such as missing tag attributes or malformed variable names. If this happens,
you will see an error similar to the following:

Example 17.1. Smarty errors

Warning: Smarty: [in index.tpl line 4]: syntax error: unknown tag - '%blah'in /path/to/smarty/Smarty.class.php on line 1041
Fatal error: Smarty: [in index.tpl line 28]: syntax error: missing section namein /path/to/smarty/Smarty.class.php on line 1041

Smarty shows you the template name, the line number and the error. After that, the error consists of theactual line number in the Smarty class that the error occured.
There are certain errors that Smarty cannot catch, such as missing close tags. These types of errors usually
end up in PHP compile-time parsing errors.

Example 17.2. PHP parsing errors

Parse error: parse error in /path/to/smarty/templates_c/index.tpl.php on line 75

When you encounter a PHP parsing error, the error line number will correspond to the compiled PHP
script, NOT the template itself. Usually you can look at the template and spot the syntax error. Here aresome common things to look for: missing close tags for {if}{/if} or {section}{/section} , orsyntax of logic within an {if} tag. If you can't find the error, you might have to open the compiled PHP
file and go to the line number to figure out where the corresponding error is in the template.

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Troubleshooting

Example 17.3. Other common errors

Warning: Smarty error: unable to read resource: "index.tpl" in...
or
Warning: Smarty error: unable to read resource: "site.conf" in...

• The $template_dir is incorrect, doesn't exist or the file index.tpl is not in the templates/
directory• A {config_load} function is within a template (or config_load() has been called) and either$config_dir is incorrect, does not exist or site.conf is not in the directory.

Fatal error: Smarty error: the $compile_dir 'templates_c' does not exist,
or is not a directory...

• Either the $compile_diris incorrectly set, the directory does not exist, or templates_c is a fileand not a directory.

Fatal error: Smarty error: unable to write to $compile_dir '....

• The $compile_dir is not writable by the web server. See the bottom of the installing smarty pagefor more about permissions.

Fatal error: Smarty error: the $cache_dir 'cache' does not exist,
or is not a directory. in /..

• This means that $caching is enabled and either; the $cache_dir is incorrectly set, the directory
does not exist, or cache/ is a file and not a directory.

Fatal error: Smarty error: unable to write to $cache_dir '/...

• This means that $caching is enabled and the $cache_dir is not writable by the web server. See
the bottom of the installing smarty page for permissions.
See also debugging, $error_reporting and trigger_error().

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Chapter 18. Tips & Tricks
Blank Variable Handling
There may be times when you want to print a default value for an empty variable instead of printing
nothing, such as printing &nbsp; so that html table backgrounds work properly. Many would use an {if}statement to handle this, but there is a shorthand way with Smarty, using the default variable modifier.

Note“Undefined variable” errors will show if PHP error_reporting() [http://php.net/
error_reporting] is E_ALL and a variable had not been assigned to Smarty.

Example 18.1. Printing &nbsp; when a variable is empty{* the long way *}{if $title eq ''}&nbsp;{else}{$title}{/if}{* the short way *}{$title|default:'&nbsp;'}

See also default modifier and default variable handling.

Default Variable HandlingIf a variable is used frequently throughout your templates, applying the default modifier every time
it is mentioned can get a bit ugly. You can remedy this by assigning the variable its default value withthe {assign} function.

Example 18.2. Assigning a template variable its default value{* do this somewhere at the top of your template *}{assign var='title' value=$title|default:'no title'}{* if $title was empty, it now contains the value "no title" when you use it *}{$title}See also default modifier and blank variable handling.

229

Tips & Tricks

Passing variable title to header template
When the majority of your templates use the same headers and footers, it is common to split those out
into their own templates and {include} them. But what if the header needs to have a different title,
depending on what page you are coming from? You can pass the title to the header as an attribute when
it is included.

Example 18.3. Passing the title variable to the header template
mainpage.tpl - When the main page is drawn, the title of “Main Page” is passed to the header.tpl,
and will subsequently be used as the title.

{include file='header.tpl' title='Main Page'}{* template body goes here *}{include file='footer.tpl'}

archives.tpl - When the archives page is drawn, the title will be “Archives”. Notice in the archive
example, we are using a variable from the archives_page.conf file instead of a hard coded variable.

{config_load file='archive_page.conf'}{include file='header.tpl' title=#archivePageTitle#}{* template body goes here *}{include file='footer.tpl'}

header.tpl - Notice that “Smarty News” is printed if the $title variable is not set, using thedefault variable modifier.

<html><head><title>{$title|default:'Smarty News'}</title></head><body>

footer.tpl</body></html>230

Tips & Tricks

Dates
As a rule of thumb, always pass dates to Smarty as timestamps [http://php.net/time]. This allows template
designers to use the date_format modifier for full control over date formatting, and also makes it easy
to compare dates if necessary.

Example 18.4. Using date_format{$startDate|date_format}

This will output:

Jan 4, 2009{$startDate|date_format:"%Y/%m/%d"}This will output:

2009/01/04

Dates can be compared in the template by timestamps with:{if $order_date < $invoice_date}...do something..
{/if}

When using {html_select_date} in a template, the programmer will most likely want to convert
the output from the form back into timestamp format. Here is a function to help you with that.

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Tips & Tricks

Example 18.5. Converting form date elements back to a timestamp<?php// this assumes your form elements are named// startDate_Day, startDate_Month, startDate_Year$startDate = makeTimeStamp($startDate_Year, $startDate_Month, $startDate_Day);
function makeTimeStamp($year='', $month='', $day=''){if(empty($year)) {$year = strftime('%Y');}
if(empty($month)) {$month = strftime('%m');}
if(empty($day)) {$day = strftime('%d');}return mktime(0, 0, 0, $month, $day, $year);}?>

See also {html_select_date}, {html_select_time}, date_format and $smarty.now,

WAP/WML
WAP/WML templates require a php Content-Type header [http://php.net/header] to be passed along withthe template. The easist way to do this would be to write a custom function that prints the header. If you areusing caching, that won't work so we'll do it using the {insert} tag; remember {insert} tags are notcached! Be sure that there is nothing output to the browser before the template, or else the header may fail.

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Tips & Tricks

Example 18.6. Using {insert} to write a WML Content-Type header<?php// be sure apache is configure for the .wml extensions!
// put this function somewhere in your application, or in Smarty.addons.phpfunction insert_header($params){// this function expects $content argument
if (empty($params['content'])) {return;}header($params['content']);return;}?>your Smarty template must begin with the insert tag :{insert name=header content="Content-Type: text/vnd.wap.wml"}<?xml version="1.0"?><!DOCTYPE wml PUBLIC "-//WAPFORUM//DTD WML 1.1//EN" "http://www.wapforum.org/DTD/wm<!-- begin new wml deck --><wml><!-- begin first card --><card><do type="accept"><go href="#two"/>
</do>
<p>
Welcome to WAP with Smarty!
Press OK to continue...
</p></card><!-- begin second card --><card id="two"><p>
Pretty easy isn't it?
</p></card></wml>

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Tips & Tricks

Componentized Templates
Traditionally, programming templates into your applications goes as follows: First, you accumulate yourvariables within your PHP application, (maybe with database queries.) Then, you instantiate your Smarty
object, assign() the variables and display() the template. So lets say for example we have a stockticker on our template. We would collect the stock data in our application, then assign these variables inthe template and display it. Now wouldn't it be nice if you could add this stock ticker to any application
by merely including the template, and not worry about fetching the data up front?
You can do this by writing a custom plugin for fetching the content and assigning it to a template variable.

Example 18.7. componentized template
function.load_ticker.php - drop file in $plugins directory<?php// setup our function for fetching stock data
function fetch_ticker($symbol){// put logic here that fetches $ticker_info// from some ticker resource
return $ticker_info;}
function smarty_function_load_ticker($params, &$smarty){// call the function$ticker_info = fetch_ticker($params['symbol']);// assign template variable$smarty->assign($params['assign'], $ticker_info);}?>index.tpl{load_ticker symbol='SMARTY' assign='ticker'}
Stock Name: {$ticker.name} Stock Price: {$ticker.price}

See also {include_php}, {include} and {php}.

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Tips & Tricks

Obfuscating E-mail Addresses
Do you ever wonder how your email address gets on so many spam mailing lists? One way spammers
collect email addresses is from web pages. To help combat this problem, you can make your email address
show up in scrambled javascript in the HTML source, yet it it will look and work correctly in the browser.
This is done with the {mailto} plugin.

Example 18.8. Example of template the Obfuscating an email address<div id="contact">Send inquiries to{mailto address=$EmailAddress encode='javascript' subject='Hello'}</div>

Technical Note
This method isn't 100% foolproof. A spammer could conceivably program his e-mail collector
to decode these values, but not likely.... hopefully..yet ... wheres that quantum computer :-?.
See also escape modifier and {mailto}.

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Chapter 19. Resources
Smarty's homepage is located at http://www.smarty.net/• You can join the mailing list by sending an e-mail to ismarty-discussionsubscribe@googlegroups.com. An archive of the mailing list can be viewed at here [http://groups.google.com/group/smarty-discussion]• Forums are at http://www.smarty.net/forums/• The wiki is located at http://smarty.incutio.com/• Join the chat at irc.freenode.net#smarty [http://smarty.incutio.com/]• FAQ's are here [http://smarty.incutio.com/?page=SmartyFrequentlyAskedQuestions] and here [http://
www.smarty.net/forums/viewforum.php?f=23]236

Chapter 20. BUGSCheck the BUGS file that comes with the latest distribution of Smarty, or check the website.

237