Variable scope of snippets

Hello,

I’m just trying to code my first own snippet (which will output stored emergency service dates of different doctors and drug stores).

I got a question concerning the scope of "my" variables. My snippet code in the manager is just a "require file.php" and the real programming is done in external files. The variables that I use, are they all global? Should I capsule the snippet’s code in functions to make my variables local and to avoid interference with other snippets, plugins or core code?

Thanks for your thoughts
Martin

Snippets are eval()’d with an output buffer, so everything within the scope of the eval should be available to your included code. I generally include my snippets from the file system anyway, to reduce the siteCache file size, and make it easy to deploy changes by FTPing code I edit in an IDE. e.g.

My snippet includes simply return the output (if any, empty string otherwise). You can wrap it in another output buffer if you want to capture output from echo/print statements.

I generally put functions and other reusable code that I may need to use more than once on a page into class or function files which I require_once().

I think that’s exactly what I do. I have a link to a file that I code within eclipse. I then only need to upload my files but not change the snippet code in modX. Is it okay when I use echo to generate code for the output or should I do it by return value?

Thx for your tipps
Martin

Quote from: FuryDE at Jun 21, 2007, 03:32 PM

Is it okay when I use echo to generate code for the output or should I do it by return value?

You can capture echo and other stdout by simply wrapping the include in, and capturing the content from, an additional output buffer, e.g. something like so...

Oh, I just noticed that this is NOT exactly what i was doing. But now I do. The last code you posted is that in the modX snippet, right? And I do my coding in the included file. Looks nice.

Thanks again
Martin