I am Working on a little project and I want to apply some sort of templating to display content in between a master template file when included on each page without using any templating engine. Currently i have the following pages.
layout.template.php
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
</head>
<body>
<!-- page content displays here -->
<?php show_content(); ?>
</body>
</html>
index.php
<?php function show_content(){ ?>
<div>
<h1>Home page</h1>
<p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit.</p>
</div>
<?php }
include 'layout.template.php';
?>
second.php
<?php function show_content(){ ?>
<div>
<h1>Second page</h1>
<p>some other content</p>
</div>
<?php }
include 'layout.template.php';
?>
i use the show_content() function to define the html that would be rendered into the layout.template.php file on each page. When layout.template.php is include it makes a call to the function and displays the html code in it based on the page it is included it. my question is
Is this a good idea or practice? What alternative do i have to achieving this (other than using templating engines)?
There is not a perfect answer, because there are too many ways how to do it.
A good solution would be to separate the view (HTML) from the logic (PHP). Probably MVC would be a good answer.
If you want to practice only:
Create a folder and put all your HTML files into that folder. Then you have your PHP file which includes a function (or maybe even a method) that calls that HTML content which you would like to display. If your HTML content also includes PHP, it would be better not to name it myFile.php. In this case call it myFile.phtml, so that it is clear to your, it is HTML but part of it is PHP as well.