Email function using templates. Includes via ob_start and global vars

Question

I have a simple Email() class. It\'s used to send out emails from my website.

I also h

Answer 1

One solution is to globalize the variables needed not inside the template but inside the function send.

public static function send($to, $subj, $msg, $options = array()) {
    global $SITE_NAME, $SITE_URL, $name;

    /* ... */
    ob_start();
    include '/inc/email/templates/account_created.php';
    $msg = ob_get_clean();
    /* ... */
}

Another solution is to pass those extra variables as parameters. This maybe ugly as the number of parameters in the set function may grow a lot depending on how many of them you need in your template. To solve this issue, another way of implementing this solution is by passing those extra variables as a hash and create those variables on-the-fly (using the function eval). Here's an example:

public static function send($to, $extra_vars = array()) {
    foreach ($extra_vars as $key => $value) {
        eval("\$$key = '$value';");
    }

    /* ... */
    ob_start();
    include '/inc/email/templates/account_created.php';
    $msg = ob_get_clean();
    /* ... */
}

Then when you should call send like this:

$SITE_NAME = "www.somewebsite.com";
Email::send("recipient", array('SITE_NAME' => $SITE_NAME));