Smarty

messju · Posted: Wed Nov 24, 2004 10:38 am Post subject:

$template_dir has to be readable by the webserver's uid ("www" in your case)
$config_dir has to be readable by the webserver's uid ("www" in your case)

$compile_dir has to be writeable by the webserver's uid ("www" in your case)
$cache_dir has to be writeable by the webserver's uid ("www" in your case)

when trying to install something you should set
error_reporting(E_ALL); ini_set('display_errors', true);
in php to make sure you get all possible errors reported.

if you configure relative-paths for template_dir, compile_dir etc. (i.e. leave them to their default values), then these paths are relative to the cwd, which is most likely the directory where the called php-page is in.

i really don't see what's so hard in all that.

octane · Smarty Regular Joined: 22 Nov 2004 Posts: 35

OK, I think brute force has triumphed over logic.

At some point, I've been flicking through permission types on the aforementioned folders and I've got the damned thing working.

However .. there is an interesting caveat to this minor victory: it only works when calling the extend class directly from within the browser.

By adding the following lines of code outside the class:

messju · Posted: Wed Nov 24, 2004 10:49 am Post subject:

i just hope your '<path_removed>' doesn't start with 'http://'

octane · Smarty Regular Joined: 22 Nov 2004 Posts: 35

octane · Smarty Regular Joined: 22 Nov 2004 Posts: 35

octane · Smarty Regular Joined: 22 Nov 2004 Posts: 35

I'm still no further forward in getting Smarty to work.

Clearly the installation documentation needs revising and massively simplifying so that it's easier to understand.

I'm sure that there are many, many people like me who aren't seasoned CLI aficionados but do want to make a serious fist of PHP and by extension, Smarty.

In it's current form, I don't see that being possible. Simply installing Smarty is a cumbersome, error-prone process.

Maybe things will improve with time.

messju · Posted: Thu Nov 25, 2004 5:00 pm Post subject:

boots · Posted: Fri Nov 26, 2004 12:28 am Post subject:

Hi octane.

Yes, any documentation can be made better but I think your expectations might be a little high. Smarty is a PHP library: sure, one of its goals is to make template designers lives simpler but the person doing the PHP part still has to be familiar with PHP before being at a point where they might profitably use Smarty. So yes, as a library it has expectations of its environment but they shouldn't be overwhelming to grasp: Smarty needs two places in the file system to read/write from and two to read from and it needs you to tell it where they are. How you set them up in terms of your server is very dependant on your platform so it really falls outside the scope of the Smarty docs. What is a provided is meant as a guide for the clueful and (hopefully) as a starting point for those who are just getting up to speed. Unfortunately, it is not always enough but the usual remedy is to become more familiar with how your platform works before jumping into a library like Smarty. The good news is that it is well worth the effort as you are likely going to run into related issues all the time and surprisingly, it doesn't take a lot to learn the key elements that you will need.

I hope the next time you decide to try things go a lot smoother.

Cheers.