I've searched all over the internet and can't seem to find a solution to my problem. I want to be able to "call" a php file from an html file and display the string returned:
html_ONLY_file.html
...
<h1>GetHeader.php?type=main</h1>
...
GetHeader.php
if($_GET['type'] == 'main')
print 'Some header to display'; //or echo 'Some...';
exit;
I've done this for images, img src="image.php?file=file.jpg", where image.php does a header(...) and readfile(...) return but I do not know how to do this for simple text. I'm not looking for DOM or anything too involved, if I have to I will. I want to know if there is a simple solution. It's generating the html side that I'm lost on.
In case you want to know, I am doing this because I once used a <#virtual include=...> to call for a php file from my .shtml file. Well, the hosting company decided to change mod_security and now I cannot include any php files (I've already tried everything). Including html files works fine and so I am changing this part of the website around so I don't have to rename files because the site is for a small business that is now ranked highly on Google for its geographical area. If I change the file names, shtml to php, then I believe the Google ranking drops (don't comment on this part unless you are damn sure you are 100% correct).
If you can edit the .htaccess file you can add a line in your .htaccess file that will mean HTML files will be parsed as if they were PHP.
If your server is running PHP as an apache module:
AddType application/x-httpd-php .html .htm
If your server is running PHP as CGI:
AddHandler application/x-httpd-php .html .htm
Source: http://www.besthostratings.com/articles/php-in-html-files.html
Once you've added that your html_ONLY_file.html could look like:
<h1><?php print "some header"; ?></h1>
And it would function just as if it were a .php file.
Alternatively, you could convert all your files to .php and add redirects into the .htaccess file like so:
rewriteRule ^somefile.shtml$ somefile.php [R=301,L]
rewriteRule ^another-file.shtml$ another-file.php [R=301,L]
This effectively says to your server "whenever a user requests somefile.shtml, act as if they requested somefile.php instead". The R=301 is the most important part with regards to Google rankings. This tells Google (and anyone who requests the .shtml file) that it's permanently moved to the new location somefile.php. This transfers all / almost all of the ranking power from the old location to the new location.