Best method to retrieve and parse data objects all around (0.9.6.3)

Hello all,

When rendering a dynamic celebrity page (http://famous-relationships.topsynergy.com/Angelina_Jolie/"" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">see existing example), the celebrity’s basic information is retrieved from a database table and used dozens of times on each and every page that belongs to that celebrity.

Sample repetitive data segments: uniqueID, name, gender, birth date, photo, and URL string (for file names and URLs).

Sample use: meta-tags, document content, parsing and manipulating database query results, forms, PHP scripts, and structuring URLs and anchor text in navigation links.

So I wrote a snippet that retrieves all these data segments for current celebrity (based on friendly URL) and discovered how easy it is to embed the values where needed in the document via:

1. Conditional output: or;

2. Sending the output to a chunk from within the snippet:

My challenges are three:

1. None of this methods works in the template itself. It seems that the snippet’s variables are private and hidden to the template layer. Let’s say that I want to declare a "keywords" meta-tag with the celebrity FullName as the first keyword. How do I call for the value to be parsed in the template before it renders? I tried to play with different @Binding methods to call the snippet via TVs but failed miserably.

2. If I output each data segment via its dedicated chunk (Name, Date of Birth, He/She, Have/Had, etc.) according to what needs to be parsed in the content, I need to maintain many small and cumbersome chunks. However, if i call the snippet each time, I cause it to re-query the database and re-evaluate the PHP code for no particular need or reason.

3. To add some complexity - each celebrity will have on the new platform around 40 pages - all share these basic data segments. I believe that being able to cache this data once retrieved for a specific CelebID becomes almost mandatory.

In summary: can you help me please to see the big picture and to devise the right method to serve all the issues above?

Thanks a lot, ganeshXL. You’ve made my day.

So, if I understand correctly - by using the setPlaceholder function, you declare/initialize these placeholders as public variables?

Quote from: ganeshXL at Feb 18, 2009, 11:53 AM

Not sure I understand you correctly, but you could add a few placeholder definitions inside of your existing snippet(s), e.g.

[[getCelebParams? &CelebID=`1` &ParamName=`FullName`]]

in this snippet, you would add something like

$modx->setPlaceholder('fullName', '$fullName');

In your template (or template-chunk), you could use the [+fullName+] placeholder wherever you want: the document title, the meta keywords and description fields, etc.

Actually, if you pull the infos from a DB, you could create the entire meta-field as one placeholder (i.e. not just name):

<meta name="description" content="[+metaDescription+]" />

The trick is simply to call the snippet before using those custom placeholders in your template.

Thanks again.

Quote from: ganeshXL at Feb 18, 2009, 04:06 PM

yep. See here for more infos + examples:

http://wiki.modxcms.com/index.php/API:setPlaceholder
http://wiki.modxcms.com/index.php?title=DB_query_and_Placeholders
http://wiki.modxcms.com/index.php?title=Placeholders_used_by_MODx_Pages_and_Templates#Placeholders