Requiring an html page but not echoing it

Question

I'm working with json and AJAX in order to get some HTML without refreshing the page. The AJAX call call a function that simplified is like this:

function postHTML($post) { // returns the HTML structure for a post starting from an array of variables
    # other stuff
    require('post.template.php'); // which is mostly HTML with just few php variables embedded
}

$data = '';
foreach ($posts as $post) {
    $data .= postHTML($post);
}

After this I manage the json as follows:

echo json_encode(array('success' => true, 'data' => $data));

Where data should be the HTML structure of each post loaded. The problem is that when i require the 'post.template.php' file it uses require and it returns the data to Javascript as:

[HTML posts] {"success": true, "data": ""}

How can I get the HTML into a variable and then pass it to json_encode without actually requiring the page (that should still be executed as PHP)?

Answer 1

You can use Output buffering , arround your require, to capture the output, preventing it from being echoed : it'll get stored in memory, and you'll be able to fetch it to a variable.

Basically, this would mean using the following kind of code :

ob_start();

// Output is no longer sent to the standard output,
// but stored in memory
require('post.template.php');

// Fetch the content that has been stored in memory
$content = ob_get_clean();

As a couple of references :

• ob_start()
• ob_get_clean()

Answer 2

<?php

function postHTML($post) { // returns the HTML structure for a post starting from an array of variables
    ob_start();
    # other stuff
    require('post.template.php'); // which is mostly HTML with just few php variables embedded
    $output = ob_get_contents();
    ob_end_clean();

    return $output;
}

$data = '';
foreach ($posts as $post) {
    $data .= postHTML($post);
}

Answer 3

Put all of the data-generating code in another function and call it when necessary. (Yes nested functions are allowed in PHP, but not sure this works in your case since you're using 'require')