Chapter 21. Tips & Tricks

Table of Contents

Blank Variable Handling
Default Variable Handling
Passing variable title to header template
Dates
WAP/WML
Componentized Templates
Obfuscating E-mail Addresses

Blank Variable Handling

There may be times when you want to print a default value for an empty variable instead of printing nothing, such as printing   so that html table backgrounds work properly. Many would use an {if} statement to handle this, but there is a shorthand way with Smarty, using the default variable modifier.

Note

Undefined variable errors will show an E_NOTICE if not disabled in PHP's error_reporting() level or Smarty's $error_reporting property and a variable had not been assigned to Smarty.

Example 21.1. Printing   when a variable is empty


{* the long way *}
{if $title eq ''}
    
{else}
   {$title}
{/if}

{* the short way *}
{$title|default:' '}

    

See also default modifier and default variable handling.