PHP str_replace to include function/file as part of a Templating system

Question

Overview: I'm making a tempting system for my sites, which at the moment is going quite well and it is working how I would expect it to, the only problems arise when I would like something like {PAGE_SIDEBAR} to show the file template/sidebar.php or something similar.

I am using

//loads of other str_replace here
$body = str_replace("{PAGE_SIDEBAR}, include("template/sidebar.php"), $body);
echo $body;

this works, however it includes the file at the start of body, NOT where {PAGE_SIDEBAR} is. Where the tag is, it shows the number 1.

See screenshots for better explanation:

How the rendered template looks before

Using the insert code above

Also, for point of interest, How it looks using file_get_contents() instead of include(): http:// www.jamesmoorhouse.co.uk/stack_overflow/str_replace/file_get_contents_method.png

Ideally I Am hoping for it to work as it would with the include method, but show up where the file_get_contents method puts it.

Answer 1

You have to capture everything that the include spits out using output buffering to be able to use it as a string:

ob_start();
include("template/sidebar.php");
$str_sidebar = ob_get_clean();
$body = str_replace("{PAGE_SIDEBAR}", $str_sidebar, $body);
echo $body;

If there are lots of placeholders that you want to replace, you might want to use a regular-expression based solution with a callback so that you don't have to repeat this code for each. See my answer here for a primer.