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   1  QUESTION INDEX
   2  --------------
   3  
   4  GENERAL
   5  
   6  Q: What is Smarty?
   7  Q: What's the difference between Smarty and other template engines?
   8  Q: What do you mean "Compiled PHP Scripts" ?
   9  Q: Why can't I just use PHPA (http://php-accelerator.co.uk) or Zend Cache?
  10  Q: Why does smarty have a built in cache? Wouldn't it be better to handle this
  11     in a separate class?
  12  Q: Is Smarty faster than <insert other PHP template engine>?
  13  Q: How can I be sure to get the best performance from Smarty?
  14  Q: Do you have a mailing list?
  15  Q: Can you change the mailing list so reply-to sends to the list and not the
  16     user?
  17  
  18  TROUBLESHOOTING
  19  
  20  Q: Smarty doesn't work.
  21  Q: I get the following error when running Smarty:
  22     Warning:  Smarty error: problem creating directory "templates_c/239/239105369"
  23     in /path/to/Smarty.class.php on line 542
  24  Q: I get the following error when running Smarty:
  25     Warning: Wrong parameter count for preg_replace() in
  26     Smarty.class.php on line 371
  27  Q: I get this error when passing variables to {include}:
  28     Fatal error: Call to undefined function: get_defined_vars() in
  29     /path/to/Smarty/templates_c/index.tpl.php on line 8
  30  Q: I get PHP errors in my {if} tag logic.
  31  Q: I'm changing my php code and/or templates, and my results are not getting
  32     updated.
  33  Q: I'm running Windows 2000 and I get blank content. My compiled PHP files are
  34     also zero length.
  35  Q: The template goes into an infinite loop when I include included templates
  36     that pass local variables
  37  Q: Javascript is causing Smarty errors in my templates.
  38  Q: I get "SAFE MODE Restriction in effect. ..."-errors when running smarty.
  39  
  40  MISC
  41  
  42  Q: Can I use Macromedia's Dreamweaver to edit my templates?
  43  Q: Dreamweaver is urlencoding the template delimiters when they are in a SRC or
  44     HREF link. How do I get around this?
  45  
  46  HOWTO
  47  
  48  Q: How do I generate different cache files per template based on arguments
  49     passed to the page?
  50  Q: How do I pass a template variable as a parameter? {function param={$varname}}
  51     does not work.
  52  Q: How do I include cached template(s) within a non-cached template?
  53  
  54  
  55  GENERAL
  56  -------
  57  
  58  Q: What is Smarty?
  59  A: Smarty is a template engine for PHP... but be aware this isn't just another
  60     PHP template engine. It's much more than that.
  61  
  62  Q: What's the difference between Smarty and other template engines?
  63  A: Most other template engines for PHP provide basic variable substitution and
  64     dynamic block functionality. Smarty takes a step further to be a "smart"
  65     template engine, adding features such as configuration files, template
  66     functions, variable modifiers (see the docs!) and making all of this
  67     functionality as easy as possible to use for both programmers and template
  68     designers. Smarty also compiles the templates into PHP scripts, eliminating
  69     the need to parse the templates on every invocation, making Smarty extremely
  70     scalable and manageable for large application needs.
  71  
  72  Q: What do you mean "Compiled PHP Scripts" ?
  73  A: Smarty reads the template files and creates PHP scripts from them. Once
  74     these PHP scripts are created, Smarty executes these, never having to parse
  75     the template files again. If you change a template file, Smarty will
  76     recreate the PHP script for it. All this is done automatically by Smarty.
  77     Template designers never need to mess with the generated PHP scripts or even
  78     know of their existance. (NOTE: you can turn off this compile checking step
  79     in Smarty for increased performance.)
  80  
  81  Q: Why can't I just use PHPA (http://php-accelerator.co.uk) or Zend Cache?
  82  A: You certainly can, and we highly recommend it! What PHPA does is caches
  83     compiled bytecode of your PHP scripts in shared memory or in a file. This
  84     speeds up server response and saves the compilation step. Smarty creates PHP
  85     scripts, which PHPA will cache nicely. Now, Smarty's built-in cache is
  86     something completely different. It caches the _output_ of the template
  87     contents. For example, if you have a template that requires several database
  88     queries, Smarty can cache this output, saving the need to call the database
  89     every time. Smarty and PHPA (or Zend Cache) complement each other nicely. If
  90     performance is of the utmost importance, we would recommend using one of
  91     these with any PHP application, using Smarty or not. As you can see in the
  92     benchmarks, Smartys performance _really_ excels in combination with a PHP
  93     accelerator.
  94  
  95  Q: Why does Smarty have a built in cache? Wouldn't it be better to handle this
  96     in a separate class?
  97  A: Smarty's caching functionality is tightly integrated with the template
  98     engine, making it quite a bit more flexible than a simple caching wrapper.
  99     For instance, you can cache select portions of a template page. Let's say
 100     you have a polling box on your site. With Smarty, you can leave the poll
 101     dynamic and cache the rest of the page. You can also pass templates
 102     multiple cache ids, meaning that a template can have several caches
 103     depending on URL, cookies, etc.
 104  
 105  Q: Is Smarty faster than <insert other PHP template engine>?
 106  A: See the benchmark page for some performance comparisons. Smarty's approach
 107     to templates is a bit different from some languages: it compiles templates
 108     into PHP scripts instead of parsing them on each invocation. This usually
 109     results in great performance gains, especially with complex templates.
 110     Coupled with the built-in caching of Smarty templates, the performance is
 111     outstanding.
 112  
 113  Q: How can I be sure to get the best performance from Smarty?
 114  A: Be sure you set $compile_check=false once your templates are initially
 115     compiled. This will skip the unneeded step of testing if the template has
 116     changed since it was last compiled. If you have complex pages that don't
 117     change too often, turn on the caching engine and adjust your application so
 118     it doesn't do unnecessary work (like db calls) if a cached page is
 119     available. See the documentation for examples.
 120     
 121  Q: Do you have a mailing list?
 122  A:  We have a few mailing lists. "general" for you to share your ideas or ask
 123      questions, "dev" for those interested in the development efforts of Smarty,
 124      and "cvs" for those that would like to track the updates made in the cvs
 125      repository.
 126  
 127      send a blank e-mail message to:
 128        smarty-general-subscribe@lists.php.net (subscribe to the general list)
 129        smarty-general-unsubscribe@lists.php.net (unsubscribe from the general list)
 130        smarty-general-digest-subscribe@lists.php.net (subscribe to digest)
 131        smarty-general-digest-unsubscribe@lists.php.net (unsubscribe from digest)
 132        smarty-dev-subscribe@lists.php.net (subscribe to the dev list)
 133        smarty-dev-unsubscribe@lists.php.net (unsubscribe from the dev list)
 134        smarty-cvs-subscribe@lists.php.net (subscribe to the cvs list)
 135        smarty-cvs-unsubscribe@lists.php.net (unsubscribe from the cvs list)
 136      You can also browse the mailing list archives at
 137      http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=smarty&r=1&w=2
 138  
 139  
 140  
 141  Q: Can you change the mailing list so Reply-To sends to the list and not the
 142     user?
 143  A: Yes we could, but no we won't. Use "Reply-All" in your e-mail client to send
 144     to the list. http://www.unicom.com/pw/reply-to-harmful.html
 145  
 146  TROUBLESHOOTING
 147  ---------------
 148  
 149  Q: Smarty doesn't work.
 150  A: You must be using PHP 4.0.6 or later if you use any version of Smarty
 151     past 2.0.1. Read the BUGS file for more info.
 152  
 153  Q: I get the following error when running Smarty:
 154     Warning:  Smarty error: problem creating directory "templates_c/239/239105369"
 155     in /path/to/Smarty.class.php on line 542
 156  A: Your web server user does not have permission to write to the templates_c
 157     directory, or is unable to create the templates_c directory. Be sure the
 158     templates_c directory exists in the location defined in Smarty.class.php,
 159     and the web server user can write to it. If you do not know the web server
 160     user, chmod 777 the templates_c directory, reload the page, then check the
 161     file ownership of the files created in templates_c. Or, you can check the
 162     httpd.conf (usually in /usr/local/apache/conf) file for this setting:
 163     User nobody
 164     Group nobody
 165  
 166  Q: I get the following error when running Smarty: Warning: Wrong parameter
 167     count for preg_replace() in Smarty.class.php on line 371
 168  A: preg_replace had a parameter added in PHP 4.0.2 that Smarty
 169     requires. Upgrade to at least 4.0.6 to fix all known PHP issues with
 170     Smarty.
 171  
 172  Q: I get this error when passing variables to {include}:
 173     Fatal error: Call to undefined function: get_defined_vars() in
 174     /path/to/Smarty/templates_c/index.tpl.php on line 8
 175  A: get_defined_vars() was added to PHP 4.0.4. If you plan on passing
 176     variables to included templates, you will need PHP 4.0.6 or later.
 177  
 178  Q: I get PHP errors in my {if} tag logic.
 179  A: All conditional qualifiers must be separated by spaces. This syntax will not
 180     work: {if $name=="Wilma"} You must instead do this: {if $name == "Wilma"}.
 181     The reason for this is syntax ambiguity. Both "==" and "eq" are equivalent
 182     in the template parser, so something like {if $nameeq"Wilma"} wouldn't be
 183     parsable by the tokenizer.
 184  
 185  Q: I'm changing my php code and/or templates, and my results are not getting
 186     updated.
 187  A: This may be the result of your compile or cache settings. If you are
 188     changing your php code, your templates will not necessarily get recompiled
 189     to reflect the changes. Use $force_compile during develpment to avoid these
 190     situations. Also turn off caching during development when you aren't
 191     specifically testing it. You can also remove everything from your
 192     compile_dir and cache_dir and reload the page to be sure everything gets
 193     regenerated.
 194  
 195  Q: I'm running Windows 2000 and I get blank content. My compiled PHP files are
 196     also zero length.
 197  A: There seems to be a problem with some W2k machines and exclusive file
 198     locking. Comment out the flock() call in _write_file to get around this,
 199     although be aware this could possibly cause a problem with simultaneous
 200     writes to a file, especially with caching turned on. NOTE: As of Smarty
 201     1.4.0, a workaround was put in place that should solve this.
 202  
 203  Q: The template goes into an infinite loop when I include included templates
 204     that pass local variables
 205  A: This was fixed in 1.3.2 (new global attribute)
 206  
 207  Q: Javascript is causing Smarty errors in my templates.
 208  A: Surround your javascript with {literal}{/literal} tags. See the docs.
 209  
 210  Q: I get "SAFE MODE Restriction in effect. ..."-errors when running smarty.
 211  A: Use $smarty->use_sub_dirs = false when running php in safe mode.
 212  
 213  MISC
 214  ----
 215  
 216  Q: Can I use Macromedia's Dreamweaver to edit my templates?
 217  A: Certainly. You might want to change your tag delimiters from {} to something
 218     that resembles valid HTML, like <!--{ }--> or <{ }> or something similar.
 219     This way the editor won't view the template tags as errors.
 220  
 221  Q: Dreamweaver is urlencoding the template delimiters when they are in a SRC or
 222     HREF link. How do I get around this?
 223  A: In Edit - Properties - Rewrite HTML you can specify if Dreamweaver should
 224     change special letters to %-equivalent or not. The default is on which
 225     produces this error.
 226  
 227  HOWTO
 228  -----
 229     
 230  Q: How do I generate different cache files per template based on arguments
 231     passed to the page?
 232  A: Use your $REQUEST_URI as the cache_id when fetching the page:
 233  
 234     global $REQUEST_URI; // if not already present
 235     $smarty->display('index.tpl',$REQUEST_URI);
 236  
 237     This will create a separate cache file for each unique URL when you call
 238     index.tpl. See the documentation for display() and fetch()
 239  
 240  Q: How do I pass a template variable as a parameter? {function param={$varname}}
 241     does not work.
 242  A: {function param=$varname} (You cannot nest template delimiters.)
 243  
 244  Q: How do I include cached template(s) within a non-cached template?
 245  A: One way to do it:
 246  
 247     $smarty->caching = true;
 248     $tpl1 = $smarty->fetch("internal1.tpl");
 249     $tpl2 = $smarty->fetch("internal2.tpl");
 250     $tpl3 = $smarty->fetch("internal3.tpl");
 251  
 252     $smarty->assign("tpl1_contents",$tpl1);
 253     $smarty->assign("tpl2_contents",$tpl2);
 254     $smarty->assign("tpl3_contents",$tpl3);
 255  
 256     $smarty->caching = false;
 257     $smarty->display('index.tpl');
 258  
 259     index.tpl
 260     ---------
 261  
 262     <table>
 263             <tr>
 264                     <td>{$tpl1_contents}</td>
 265                     <td>{$tpl2_contents}</td>
 266                     <td>{$tpl3_contents}</td>
 267             </tr>
 268     </table>
 269  
 270  
 271  
 272  
 273     Another approach:
 274  
 275     You could write a custom insert function to fetch your internal
 276     templates:
 277  
 278     <table>
 279             <tr>
 280                     <td>{insert name=fetch_tpl tpl="internal1.tpl"}</td>
 281                     <td>{insert name=fetch_tpl tpl="internal2.tpl"}</td>
 282                     <td>{insert name=fetch_tpl tpl="internal3.tpl"}</td>
 283             </tr>
 284     </table>