Smarty Assign Var - PHP

Smarty is a popular templating engine for PHP that helps in separating the presentation layer from the business logic. It provides a lot of features that make the development process simpler and faster. One of the essential features of Smarty is assign() method. Let's dive deeper to understand what assign() method is and how it is used in PHP.

What is assign() method?

assign() method is a feature of the Smarty templating engine. It allows us to assign a value to a variable in the template file, which can be accessed from the PHP script. We can assign any value to the variable, like a string, an array, or an object.

Syntax

The syntax for assigning a variable in Smarty is:

{assign var=variable value=value}

Where var is the name of the variable, and value is the value assigned to the variable.

Usage

Let's see some examples of how we can use the assign() method in PHP:

Example 1: Assign a string to a variable

In the following example, we are assigning a string to a variable named message using the assign() method:

$smarty->assign('message', 'Hello World');

We can then access this variable in the template file using the {$message} notation:

<p>{$message}</p>

This will output:

Hello World

Example 2: Assign an array to a variable

In the following example, we are assigning an array to a variable named colors using the assign() method:

$colors = array('red', 'green', 'blue');
$smarty->assign('colors', $colors);

We can then access this variable in the template file using the {$colors} notation and loop through the array using the foreach loop:

<ul>
    {foreach $colors as $color}
        <li>{$color}</li>
    {/foreach}
</ul>

This will output:

- red
- green
- blue

Example 3: Assign an object to a variable

In the following example, we are assigning an object to a variable named user using the assign() method:

$user = new stdClass();
$user->name = 'John';
$user->age = 25;
$smarty->assign('user', $user);

We can then access this variable in the template file using the {$user} notation and display the properties of the object:

<p>Name: {$user->name}</p>
<p>Age: {$user->age}</p>

This will output:

Name: John
Age: 25

Conclusion

In this article, we learned about the assign() method in Smarty, which allows us to assign a value to a variable in the template file. By using this method, we can separate the presentation layer from the business logic and create more organized and efficient code.