Template helpers from php novice to ninja

[matt14]

Hi,
In the excellent book PHP and MySQL novice to ninja on page 181 Kevin suggests the following

<?php
function html($text)
{
  return htmlspecialchars($text, ENT_QUOTES, 'UTF-8');
}
function htmlout($text)
{
  echo html($text);
}

to output the data

This simplified version seems to do the same job.

function html($text){
	$out = htmlspecialchars($text, ENT_QUOTES, 'UTF-8');
	echo $out;
}

Is there any problem with doing it like this?

[fretburner]

Hi Matt,

Your function does indeed do the job, although you could make it simpler by skipping the temporary variable $out and just echo the return value of htmlspecialchars directly.

Personally, I’d prefer the function from the book that returns its output, as it’s more flexible/reusable. With functions that return their output, you have the option to do further processing. With your function, you are forced to echo the output.

[matt14]

Thank you…Makes sense