Using your own functions within Actinic's PHP.

[NormanRouxel]

If you're writing some custom PHP to embed into layouts, you'll find it difficult to write a function of your own.

PHP doesn't allow a function to be redeclared. Most Layouts are repeated as successive pages are built causing an attempted redeclaration and a warning message is issued.

The way around this is to declare your function conditionally upon it's own non-existence. E.g.

<actinic:block php="true">
if ( ! function_exists('mypythagoras') ){ 
  function mypythagoras($x, $y){
    $z = sqrt($x*$x + $y*$y);
    return $z;
  }
}


echo '<br>3, 4 has hypotenuse: ' . mypythagoras(3, 4);
echo '<br>2, 2 has hypotenuse: ' . mypythagoras(2, 2);
</actinic:block>

[Duncan Rounding]

Clever one Norman, thanks for sharing it - a tip for AUG I hope....Chris...

[zmagyar]

Norman, if you are writing your own functions then probably not the layout code is the best place for that. You can create your own php library in a separate file then include it in actinic_main.php (see my former comment here).

[NormanRouxel]

Hi, Zoltan

I knew this, but it has the disadvantage that it's a single file used for all sites. If there was a mechanism to include files on a per-site basis (e.g. a local Site folder include file that would automatically be incorporated if it existed) that would be great.

What I was trying to do was to create some code that would operate in a Layout so that it could be distributed within a Partial Site Design snapshot. Having functions within the distributed design seems essential in such a scenario.

Another way to do this would be to put your code into a separate file. E.g. myfunctions.php in the Site folder.

<?php
  function mypythagoras($x, $y){
    $z = sqrt($x*$x + $y*$y);
    return $z;
  }
?>

Then in the Actinic layout we could have

<actinic:block php="true">
include_once 'myfunctions.php';

echo '<br>3, 4 has hypotenuse: ' . mypythagoras(3, 4);
echo '<br>2, 2 has hypotenuse: ' . mypythagoras(2, 2);
</actinic:block>

This works but requires an additional file be added to the Partial Site Design snapshot.

[NormanRouxel]

Zoltan,

A nice fix would be to add something to actinic_main.php like

if ( file_exists('myincludes.php') ) include 'myincludes.php';

however this doesn't seem to work as the current Site folder isn't in the path searched when actinic_main.php is run. Is there any Site path variable that could be used here?

[zmagyar]

Actinic variables are not working in actinic_main.php because it is never get uploaded (hence not processed by the rendering engine).

I can see a couple of solutions here.
1) we can move actinic_main.php to the site folder
2) we can add some initialisation code to the evaluation of actinic_main.php

The latter seem to be the more appropriate to me. It will mean that the

if ( file_exists('myincludes.php') ) include 'myincludes.php';

line would be added by the c++ (adding the site path to the include file name).

I'm going to raise a bug for this but I can not promise it will be in the next maintenance release.

[NormanRouxel]

Hi, Zoltan

Many thanks for considering this change. At the moment I'm getting good results by putting my PHP functions into an external file and using

include_once 'myfunctions.php';

somewhere in my Layouts (before any PHP that needs these functions).

However it would be nice for something automatic to be available.

Having actinic_main.php copied to and loaded from the Site folder (like all the Perl scripts) would be ideal as it would allow for individual site customisations.