Getting Started with PHP Templating

In the early days of PHP applications, “spaghetti code” was a familiar sight. Fragments of PHP code were mixed in with HTML mark-up. There were no frameworks, so Web applications were just a bunch of source files. As the PHP language matured, developers started to think about the cleanliness and maintainability of their code. The model-view-controller (MVC) pattern was introduced.

MVC is a software architecture that allows for the separation of business logic from the user interface. In this architecture, the user sees and interacts with the view that, in the case of Web applications, is generated HTML code (along with JavaScript, CSS, images, etc.)

In this article, we'll cover how to separate the view of your PHP application from its other components. We’ll look at why using such an architecture is useful and what tools we can use to accomplish this. Here’s what we’ll cover:

1. Learn some basic MVC concepts,
2. Review some popular templating libraries,
3. Play around with a small custom-made view class.
4. Explore the basics of using the Twig library.

To fully benefit from this article, you should already know how to write and run your own PHP scripts on a Web server (i.e. using Apache).