Okay, so maybr I'm going about doing this entirely wrong, I probably am. But I would like to be able to take the HTML between a ... like so:
$str = ?>
... some HTML goes here ...
<?php ;
Am I completely off my rocker to think I can do this? I couldn't think of a way to put it into words so I could search it on Google, which is why I'm here...
You can use output buffering:
ob_start();
?>
... some HTML goes here ...
<?php
echo 'php outputs are captured too';
$str = ob_get_contents();
ob_end_clean();
Alternatively, if it's just a little bit of HTML (and no php code within), just write it down with one of the string formats like heredoc or nowdoc:
$str = <<<'NOWDOC'
... some HTML goes here
NOWDOC;
Look into heredocs and nowdocs. A heredoc looks like:
$str = <<<HTML
<div>This is some text!</div>
HTML;
// We're back in PHP.
echo $str;
If you specifically want to work with HTML, look into XHP.
Just wanted to add to phihag's answer.
It is possible to capture HTML with a function as well, including with anonymous functions:
<?php $bob = function() { ?>
... some HTML here...
<?php }; ?>
and later output $bob:
<?php $bob(); ?>
or capture the output of $bob somewhere else with output buffering:
ob_start();
$bob();
$str = ob_get_contents();
ob_end_clean();
PHP has a multiline, specially delimited string for such situations.
