What are the real advantages of templating engines over just using PHP?

Question

I develop my web applications using only PHP for the view files and I don\'t feel limited in any way, but I hear there\'s a consistent number of developers advocating \"external

Answer 1

New Syntax

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Some people wont agree, but since I've been using Twig the "for ... else" feels right. It might not be a lot, but it keeps my templates that little bit cleaner.

{% for row in articles %}
 Display articles ...
{% else %}
 No articles.
{% endfor %}

Automatic Escaping

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You can have the template engine automatically escape any output. This is great as you no longer have to repeat htmlspecialchars ... everywhere. Twig does this nicely.

{% autoescape on %}
  Everything will be automatically escaped in this block
{% endautoescape %}

Template Inheritance

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Another feature I like is the ability to extend base templates. Here's a basic example

base.html template

  {% block head %}
    
    
  {% endblock %}


  
{% block content %}{% endblock %}
  

    {% block footer %}
      © Copyright 2009 by you.
    {% endblock %}
  

child.html template

{% extends "base.html" %}

{% block title %}Index{% endblock %}
{% block head %}
  {% parent %}
  
{% endblock %}
{% block content %}
  
Index
  

    Welcome on my awesome homepage.
  
{% endblock %}

A child template can override blocks for page specific styles, content, etc ... You can also notice the use of {% parent %} which grabs the parents content so you don't lose it all while overriding.

I recommend you give Twig a go. Extremely useful.