Smarty PHP Template Programming and Applications by Lucian Gheorghe

254 Pages·2006·9.83 MB·English

Smarty
PHP Template Programming and Applications

A step-by-step guide to building PHP web sites and
applications using the Smarty templating engine

João Prado Maia
Hasin Hayder
Lucian Gheorghe

BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI
Download at Boykma.Com
Smarty
PHP Template Programming and Applications
Copyright © 2006 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher,
except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.
Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the
information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty,
either express or implied. Neither the authors, Packt Publishing, nor its dealers or distributors will
be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.
Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all the companies and
products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing
cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First published: April 2006

Production Reference: 1050406

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.
32 Lincoln Road
Olton
Birmingham, B27 6PA, UK.
ISBN 1-904811-40-X
www.packtpub.com
Cover Design by www.visionwt.com
Download at Boykma.Com
Credits
Authors Development Editor
João Prado Maia David Barnes
Hasin Hayder
Lucian Gheorghe Indexer
Ashutosh Pande
Reviewer
Mizanur Rahman Proofreader
Chris Smith
Technical Editor
Rushabh Sanghavi Production Coordinator
Manjiri Nadkarni
Editorial Manager
Dipali Chittar Cover Designer
Helen Wood
Download at Boykma.Com
About the Authors
João Prado Maia is Lead Software Developer with Alert Logic, Inc. and was previously with
MySQL AB as the lead developer behind Eventum, an issue tracking system, and MySQL
Network, a subscription product for everything related to MySQL services. He has been
working with PHP, Smarty, and PEAR for several years, and maintains phpbrasil.com, one of
the most popular PHP-related community sites in Brazil. He is also interested in fostering a
community of PHP developers in Houston by organizing the Houston PHP Users Group at
http://houstonphp.org.
I would like to thank my wife for her encouragement and patience while I was writing
chapters for this book. I dedicate my work to you, Juliana.

Hasin Hayder graduated in Civil Engineering from Rajshahi University of Engineering and
Technology (RUET). He is an open-source enthusiast who has been programming since early
2001. He maintains phpXperts, the largest PHP user group in Bangladesh, and Zephyr, an
open-source AJAX-based MVC framework for PHP5 developers. He is currently working as a
web application developer in a Norwegian software development company, "Somewhere In...".
You can reach him at [email protected].
I would like to thank my editors from Packt Publishing, David Barnes, Rushabh Sanghavi,
and Patricia Weir for this book. Without them I doubt I would have completed my chapters
so easily. I would also like to thank Damian and Arnab in Packt Publishing for their help.
Thanks also go to Mom, Dad, all my family members, Mahbub bhai, Rashidul Hasan and
all my friends for supporting me. And finally I would like to thank Ashikuzzaman Fahim and
Arild Klokkerhaug, who inspire me a lot.
I would like to dedicate this book to my wife and my best friend Ayesha. I know I could not
live here without you.
Download at Boykma.Com
Lucian Gheorghe is currently working as a senior network engineer for Globtel Internet, a
significant Internet and Telephony Services Provider to the Romanian market. Even if it's not his
main activity, He has been programming in PHP for over 5 years building billing interfaces,
industrial software interfaces, e-commerce sites, and so on. He had a lot of help from a friend
called Smarty in his programming experiences.
Lucian got his first taste of writing when he contributed a few chapters to the book Beginning
PHP 5 and MySQL E-Commerce by Cristian Darie and Mihai Bucica, Apress, 2004, with his
appendix for Project Management added to the book Beginning ASP.NET 2.0 E-Commerce in C#
2005 by Cristian Darie and Karli Watson, Apress, 2005.
I would like to thank you for buying this book, my parents for everything they did for me, my
girlfriend who stood by me, the team at Globtel, which is like a second family for me and last,
but not least a very good friend, the greatest technical author alive—Cristian Darie.

Download at Boykma.Com
About the Reviewer
Mizanur Rahman is a Computer Science graduate from North South University, Bangladesh. He
has 7 years of programming experience and vast knowledge on open-source technologies. He has
more than 5 years of experience on working with PHP and PHP-related tools and technologies.
Currently he is working as a full time senior software engineer in a USA-based software company
located in Dhaka.
Download at Boykma.Com
Download at Boykma.Com
Table of Contents
Preface 1
Chapter 1: Introduction to Smarty 5
Templating Systems 5
Why Use a Templating System? 6
The Smartness of Smarty 7
Smarty Alternatives 8
A Rough Guide to the Software Design Process 8
Working in Teams: Layers and Separation of Concerns 9
Smarty—The Ultimate Templating System for PHP 10
Is Smarty Fast? 11
Is Smarty Secure? 11
Smarty's Main Features 12
Variable Modifiers 12
Template Functions 12
Debugging 13
Plug-ins 13
Filters 14
Smarty Internals 14
Installing and Configuring Smarty 15
Step 1: Obtaining Smarty 15
Step 2: Configure PHP to Find the Smarty Libraries 16
On Windows 16
On Linux 16
An Alternative to Step 2: Using Smarty without Having Full Access to the
System 16
Step 3: Set Up Smarty for Your Application 17
Step 4: Verifying the Installation 17
Smarty Development Versions on CVS 18
Upgrading a Smarty Site 19
Summary 19
Download at Boykma.Com
Table of Contents
Chapter 2: Smarty Site Architecture 21
Separation of Concerns 22
What Does Concern Mean? 22
A Problem-Solving Perspective 22
Cross-cutting Concerns 23
Roles Involved in Building and Maintaining a Website 23
Starting a Smarty Project 24
Directory Structure 24
Securing our Smarty Project 25
The Data Access Layer 25
How it Works 27
The Business Logic Layer 27
How it Works 28
The Presentation Layer 29
How it Works 30
The Result 31
Summary 32
Smarty for Designers
Chapter 3: What Designers Need to Know 33
Development Team Problems: Common Scenarios 33
Roles of a Template Designer and a Programmer 34
Definitions and Concepts for Designers 35
Concept of Reusability and Components 36
Splitting into Components 38
How to Design Table-less Layouts? 41
Handy Built-in Tags 43
Choosing an Editor for Template Design 44
Collaborating with Programmers 46
Summary 47
Chapter 4: Creating a Template 49
Design Concepts, from HTML to TPL 49
Introduction to Smarty Variables 52
Starting Templates 53
Non-associative Array 54
Associative Array 54
ii
Download at Boykma.Com