smarty/docs/getting-started.sgml

<part id="getting.started">
 <title>Getting Started</title>

 <chapter id="what.is.smarty">
   <title>What is Smarty?</title>
   <para>
	Smarty is a template engine for PHP. More specifically, it facilitates a
	manageable way to separate application logic and content from its
	presentation. This is best described in a situation where the application
	programmer and the template designer play different roles, or in most cases
	are not the same person. For example, let's say you are creating a web page
	that is displaying a newspaper article. The article headline, tagline,
	author and body are content elements, they contain no information about how
	they will be presented. They are passed into Smarty by the application,
	then the template designer edits the templates and uses a combination of
	HTML tags and template tags to format the presentation of these elements
	(HTML tables, background colors, font sizes, style sheets, etc.) One day
	the programmer needs to change the way the article content is retrieved (a
	change in application logic.) This change does not affect the template
	designer, the content will still arrive in the template exactly the same.
	Likewise, if the template designer wants to completely redesign the
	templates, this requires no changes to the application logic. Therefore,
	the programmer can make changes to the application logic without the need
	to restructure templates, and the template designer can make changes to
	templates without breaking application logic.
	</para>
	<para>
	Now for a short word on what Smarty does NOT do. Smarty does not attempt to
	completely separate logic from the templates. There is no problem with
	logic in your templates under the condition that this logic is strictly for
	presentation. A word of advice: keep application logic out of the
	templates, and presentation logic out of the application. This will most
	definately keep things manageable and scalable for the foreseeable future.
	</para>
	<para>
	One of the unique aspects about Smarty is the template compling. This means
	Smarty reads the template files and creates PHP scripts from them. Once
	they are created, they are executed from then on. Therefore there is no
	costly template file parsing for each request, and each template can take
	full advantage of PHP compiler cache solutions such as Zend Accelerator
	(http://www.zend.com) or PHP Accelerator
	(http://www.php-accelerator.co.uk).
   </para>
   <para>
    Some of Smarty's features:
   </para>
   <itemizedlist>
    <listitem><para>It is extremely fast.</para></listitem>
    <listitem><para>It is efficient since the PHP parser does the
      dirty work.</para></listitem>
    <listitem><para>No template parsing overhead, only compiles once.</para></listitem>
    <listitem><para>It is smart about recompiling only the template
      files that have changed.</para></listitem>
    <listitem><para>You can make <link linkend="language.custom.functions">custom
       functions</link> and custom <link linkend="language.modifiers">variable
       modifiers</link>, so the template language is extremely extensible.</para></listitem>
    <listitem><para>Configurable template delimiter tag syntax, so you can use
      {}, {{}}, &lt;!--{}--&gt;, etc.</para></listitem>
    <listitem><para>The if/elseif/else/endif constructs are passed to the
      PHP parser, so the {if ...} expression syntax can be as simple or as complex
      as you like.</para></listitem>
    <listitem><para>Unlimited nesting of sections, ifs, etc. allowed.</para></listitem>
    <listitem><para>It is possible to embed PHP code right in your template files,
      although this may not be needed (nor recommended)
      since the engine is so customizable.</para></listitem>
    <listitem><para>Built-in caching support</para></listitem>
    <listitem><para>Arbitrary template sources</para></listitem>
    <listitem><para>Custom cache handling functions</para></listitem>
    <listitem><para>Plugin architecture</para></listitem>
   </itemizedlist>
 </chapter>
 <chapter id="installation">
  <title>Installation</title>

  <sect1 id="installation.requirements">
   <title>Requirements</title>
   <para>
   Smarty requires a web server running PHP 4.0.6 or later.
   </para>
  </sect1>

  <sect1 id="installing.smarty.basic">
    <title>Basic Installation</title>
	<para>
	Install the Smarty library files which are in the /libs/ directory of
	the distribution. These are the PHP files that you SHOULD NOT edit. They
	are shared among all applications and they only get updated when you
	upgrade to a new version of Smarty.
	</para>
	<example>
     <title>Smarty library files</title>
     <screen>
Smarty.class.php
Smarty_Compiler.class.php
Config_File.class.php
debug.tpl
/plugins/*.php (all of them!)</screen>
	</example>

	<para>
	Smarty uses a PHP constant named <link
	linkend="constant.smarty.dir">SMARTY_DIR</link> which is the system
	filepath Smarty library directory. Basically, if your application can find
	the <emphasis>Smarty.class.php</emphasis> file, you do not need to set
	SMARTY_DIR, Smarty will figure it out on its own. Therefore, if
	<emphasis>Smarty.class.php</emphasis> is not in your include_path, or you
	do not supply an absolute path to it in your application, then you must
	define SMARTY_DIR manually. SMARTY_DIR <emphasis>must</emphasis> include a
	trailing slash.
	</para>
	<para>
	Here is how you create an instance of Smarty in your PHP scripts:
	</para>

	<example>
     <title>Create Smarty instance of Smarty</title>
     <screen>
require('Smarty.class.php');
$smarty = new Smarty;</screen>
	</example>

	<para>
	Try running the above script. If you get an error saying the
	<emphasis>Smarty.class.php</emphasis> file could not be found, you have to
	do one of the following:
	</para>

	<example>
     <title>Supply absolute path to library directory</title>
     <screen>
require('/usr/local/lib/php/Smarty/Smarty.class.php');
$smarty = new Smarty;</screen>
	</example>

	<example>
     <title>Add library directory to php_include path</title>
     <screen>
// Edit your php.ini file, add the Smarty library
// directory to the include_path and restart web server.
// Then the following should work:
require('Smarty.class.php');
$smarty = new Smarty;</screen>
	</example>

	<example>
     <title>Set SMARTY_DIR constant manually</title>
     <screen>
define('SMARTY_DIR','/usr/local/lib/php/Smarty/');
require(SMARTY_DIR.'Smarty.class.php');
$smarty = new Smarty;</screen>
	</example>

	<para>
	Now that the library files are in place, it's time to setup the Smarty
	directories for your application. Smarty requires four directories which
	are (by default) named <emphasis>templates</emphasis>,
	<emphasis>templates_c</emphasis>, <emphasis>configs</emphasis> and
	<emphasis>cache</emphasis>. Each of these are definable by the Smarty class
	properties <emphasis>$template_dir</emphasis>,
	<emphasis>$compile_dir</emphasis>, <emphasis>$config_dir</emphasis>, and
	<emphasis>$cache_dir</emphasis> respectively. It is highly recommended
	that you setup a separate set of these directories for each application
	that will use Smarty.
	</para>
	<para>
	Be sure you know the location of your web server document root. In our
	example, the document root is "/web/www.mydomain.com/docs/". The Smarty
	directories are only accessed by the Smarty library and never accessed
	directly by the web browser. Therefore to avoid any security concerns, it
	is recommended to place these directories in a directory
	<emphasis>off</emphasis> the document root.
	</para>
	<para>
	For our installation example, we will be setting up the Smarty environment
	for a guest book application. We picked an application only for the purpose
	of a directory naming convention. You can use the same environment for any
	application, just replace "guestbook" with the name of your app. We'll
	place our Smarty directories under
	"/web/www.mydomain.com/smarty/guestbook/".
	</para>
	<para>
	You will need as least one file under your document root, and that is the
	script accessed by the web browser. We will call our script "index.php",
	and place it in a subdirectory under the document root called
	"/guestbook/". It is convenient to setup the web server so that "index.php"
	can be identified as the default directory index, so if you access
	"http://www.mydomain.com/guestbook/", the index.php script will be executed
	without "index.php" in the URL. In Apache you can set this up by adding
	"index.php" onto the end of your DirectoryIndex setting (separate each
	entry with a space.)
	</para>
	
	<para>
	Lets take a look at the file structure so far:
	</para>

	<example>
     <title>Example file structure</title>
     <screen>
/usr/local/lib/php/Smarty/Smarty.class.php
/usr/local/lib/php/Smarty/Smarty_Compiler.class.php
/usr/local/lib/php/Smarty/Config_File.class.php
/usr/local/lib/php/Smarty/debug.tpl
/usr/local/lib/php/Smarty/plugins/*.php

/web/www.mydomain.com/smarty/guestbook/templates/
/web/www.mydomain.com/smarty/guestbook/templates_c/
/web/www.mydomain.com/smarty/guestbook/configs/
/web/www.mydomain.com/smarty/guestbook/cache/

/web/www.mydomain.com/docs/guestbook/index.php</screen>
	</example>

	<para>
	Smarty will need write access to the <emphasis>$compile_dir</emphasis> and
	<emphasis>$cache_dir</emphasis>, so be sure the web server user can write
	to them. This is usually user "nobody" and group "nobody". For OS X users,
	the default is user "web" and group "web". If you are using Apache, you can
	look in your httpd.conf file (usually in "/usr/local/apache/conf/") to see
	what user and group are being used.
	</para>

	<example>
     <title>Setting file permissions</title>
     <screen>

chown nobody:nobody /web/www.mydomain.com/smarty/guestbook/templates_c/
chmod 770 /web/www.mydomain.com/smarty/guestbook/templates_c/

chown nobody:nobody /web/www.mydomain.com/smarty/guestbook/cache/
chmod 770 /web/www.mydomain.com/smarty/guestbook/cache/</screen>
	</example>

	<note>
	 <title>Technical Note</title>
	 <para>
	 chmod 770 will be fairly tight security, it only allows user "nobody" and
	 group "nobody" read/write access to the directories. If you would like to
	 open up read access to anyone (mostly for your own convenience of viewing
	 these files), you can use 775 instead.
     </para>
	</note>

	<para>
	We need to create the index.tpl file that Smarty will load. This will be
	located in your $template_dir.
	</para>

	<example>
     <title>Editing /web/www.mydomain.com/smarty/guestbook/templates/index.tpl</title>
     <screen>

{* Smarty *}

Hello, {$name}!</screen>
	</example>


	<note>
	<title>Technical Note</title>
	<para>
		{* Smarty *} is a template comment. It is not required, but it is good
		practice to start all your template files with this comment. It makes
		the file easy to recognize regardless of the file extension. For
		example, text editors could recognize the file and turn on special
		syntax highlighting.
	</para>
	</note>

	<para>
	Now lets edit index.php. We'll create an instance of Smarty, assign a
	template variable and display the index.tpl file. In our example
	environment, "/usr/local/lib/php/Smarty" is in our include_path. Be sure you
	do the same, or use absolute paths.
	</para>

	<example>
     <title>Editing /web/www.mydomain.com/docs/guestbook/index.php</title>
     <screen>
// load Smarty library
require('Smarty.class.php');

$smarty = new Smarty;

$smarty->template_dir = '/web/www.mydomain.com/smarty/guestbook/templates/';
$smarty->compile_dir = '/web/www.mydomain.com/smarty/guestbook/templates_c/';
$smarty->config_dir = '/web/www.mydomain.com/smarty/guestbook/configs/';
$smarty->cache_dir = '/web/www.mydomain.com/smarty/guestbook/cache/';

$smarty->assign('name','Ned');

$smarty->display('index.tpl');</screen>
	</example>

	<note>
	 <title>Technical Note</title>
	 <para>
	 In our example, we are setting absolute paths to all of the Smarty
	 directories. If '/web/www.mydomain.com/smarty/guestbook/' is within your
	 PHP include_path, then these settings are not necessary. However, it is
	 more efficient and (from experience) less error-prone to set them to
	 absolute paths. This ensures that Smarty is getting files from the
	 directories you intended.
	 </para>
	</note>

	<para>
	Now load the index.php file from your web browser. You should see "Hello,
	Ned!"
	</para>
	<para>
	You have completed the basic setup for Smarty!
	</para>
   </sect1>
   <sect1 id="installing.smarty.extended">
   <title>Extended Setup</title>

   <para>
   This is a continuation of the <link
   linkend="installing.smarty.basic">basic installation</link>, please read
   that first!
   </para>
   <para>
   A slightly more flexible way to setup Smarty is to extend the class and
   initialize your Smarty environment. So instead of repeatedly setting
   directory paths, assigning the same vars, etc., we can do that in one place.
   Lets create a new directory "/php/includes/guestbook/" and make a new file
   called "setup.php". In our example environment, "/php/includes" is in our
   include_path. Be sure you set this up too, or use absolute file paths.
   </para>

   <example>
    <title>Editing /php/includes/guestbook/setup.php</title>
    <screen>

// load Smarty library
require('Smarty.class.php');

// The setup.php file is a good place to load
// required application library files, and you
// can do that right here. An example:
// require('guestbook/guestbook.lib.php');

class Smarty_GuestBook extends Smarty {

   function Smarty_GuestBook() {
   
   		// Class Constructor. These automatically get set with each new instance.

		$this->Smarty();

		$this->template_dir = '/web/www.mydomain.com/smarty/guestbook/templates/';
		$this->compile_dir = '/web/www.mydomain.com/smarty/guestbook/templates_c/';
		$this->config_dir = '/web/www.mydomain.com/smarty/guestbook/configs/';
		$this->cache_dir = '/web/www.mydomain.com/smarty/guestbook/cache/'; 
		
		$this->caching = true;
		$this->assign('app_name','Guest Book');
   }

}</screen>
   </example>

  <para>
  Now lets alter the index.php file to use setup.php:
  </para>
   
   <example>
    <title>Editing /web/www.mydomain.com/docs/guestbook/index.php</title>
    <screen>

require('guestbook/setup.php');

$smarty = new Smarty_GuestBook;

$smarty->assign('name','Ned');

$smarty->display('index.tpl');</screen>
   </example>

  <para>
  Now you see it is quite simple to bring up an instance of Smarty, just use
  Smarty_GuestBook which automatically initializes everything for our application.
  </para>
   
  </sect1>

 </chapter>
</part>