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Basic Installation

Install the Smarty library files which are in the /libs/ sub directory of the distribution. These are .php files that you SHOULD NOT edit. They are shared among all applications and only get changed when you upgrade to a new version of Smarty.

In the examples below the Smarty tarball has been unpacked to:

  • /usr/local/lib/Smarty-v.e.r/ for *nix machines

  • and c:\webroot\libs\Smarty-v.e.r\ for the windows environment.

Example 2.1. Required Smarty library files


Smarty-v.e.r/
   libs/
      Smarty.class.php
      debug.tpl
      sysplugins/* (everything)
      plugins/*    (everything)

    

Smarty uses a PHP constant named SMARTY_DIR which is the full system file path to the Smarty libs/ directory. Basically, if your application can find the Smarty.class.php file, you do not need to set the SMARTY_DIR as Smarty will figure it out on its own. Therefore, if Smarty.class.php is not in your include_path, or you do not supply an absolute path to it in your application, then you must define SMARTY_DIR manually. SMARTY_DIR must include a trailing slash/.

Here's how you create an instance of Smarty in your PHP scripts:


<?php
// NOTE: Smarty has a capital 'S'
require_once('Smarty.class.php');
$smarty = new Smarty();
?>

    

Try running the above script. If you get an error saying the Smarty.class.php file could not be found, you need to do one of the following:

Example 2.2. Set SMARTY_DIR constant manually


<?php
// *nix style (note capital 'S')
define('SMARTY_DIR', '/usr/local/lib/Smarty-v.e.r/libs/');

// windows style
define('SMARTY_DIR', 'c:/webroot/libs/Smarty-v.e.r/libs/');

// hack version example that works on both *nix and windows
// Smarty is assumend to be in 'includes/' dir under current script
define('SMARTY_DIR',str_replace("\\","/",getcwd()).'/includes/Smarty-v.e.r/libs/');

require_once(SMARTY_DIR . 'Smarty.class.php');
$smarty = new Smarty();
?>

    

Example 2.3. Supply absolute path to library file


<?php
// *nix style (note capital 'S')
require_once('/usr/local/lib/Smarty-v.e.r/libs/Smarty.class.php');

// windows style
require_once('c:/webroot/libs/Smarty-v.e.r/libs/Smarty.class.php');

$smarty = new Smarty();
?>

    

Example 2.4. Add the library path to the php.ini file


;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
; Paths and Directories ;
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

; *nix: "/path1:/path2"
include_path = ".:/usr/share/php:/usr/local/lib/Smarty-v.e.r/libs/"

; Windows: "\path1;\path2"
include_path = ".;c:\php\includes;c:\webroot\libs\Smarty-v.e.r\libs\"


Example 2.5. Appending the include path in a php script with ini_set()


<?php
// *nix
ini_set('include_path', ini_get('include_path').PATH_SEPARATOR.'/usr/local/lib/Smarty-v.e.r/libs/');

// windows
ini_set('include_path', ini_get('include_path').PATH_SEPARATOR.'c:/webroot/lib/Smarty-v.e.r/libs/');
?>

    

Now that the library files are in place, it's time to setup the Smarty directories for your application:

  • Smarty requires four directories which are by default named templates/, templates_c/, configs/ and cache/

  • Each of these are definable by the Smarty class properties $template_dir, $compile_dir, $config_dir, and $cache_dir respectively

  • It is highly recommended that you setup a separate set of these directories for each application that will use Smarty

  • You can verify if your system has the correct access rights for these directories with testInstall().

For our installation example, we will be setting up the Smarty environment for a guest book application. We picked an application only for the purpose of a directory naming convention. You can use the same environment for any application, just replace guestbook/ with the name of your application.

Example 2.6. What the file structure looks like


/usr/local/lib/Smarty-v.e.r/libs/
        Smarty.class.php
        debug.tpl
        sysplugins/*
        plugins/*

/web/www.example.com/
        guestbook/
        templates/
            index.tpl
        templates_c/
        configs/
        cache/
        htdocs/
            index.php

    

Be sure that you know the location of your web server's document root as a file path. In the following examples, the document root is /web/www.example.com/guestbook/htdocs/. The Smarty directories are only accessed by the Smarty library and never accessed directly by the web browser. Therefore to avoid any security concerns, it is recommended (but not mandatory) to place these directories outside of the web server's document root.

You will need as least one file under your document root, and that is the script accessed by the web browser. We will name our script index.php, and place it in a subdirectory under the document root /htdocs/.

Smarty will need write access (windows users please ignore) to the $compile_dir and $cache_dir directories (templates_c/ and cache/), so be sure the web server user account can write to them.

Note

This is usually user nobody and group nobody. For OS X users, the default is user www and group www. If you are using Apache, you can look in your httpd.conf file to see what user and group are being used.

Example 2.7. Permissions and making directories writable


chown nobody:nobody /web/www.example.com/guestbook/templates_c/
chmod 770 /web/www.example.com/guestbook/templates_c/

chown nobody:nobody /web/www.example.com/guestbook/cache/
chmod 770 /web/www.example.com/guestbook/cache/

    

Note

chmod 770 will be fairly tight security, it only allows user nobody and group nobody read/write access to the directories. If you would like to open up read access to anyone (mostly for your own convenience of viewing these files), you can use 775 instead.

We need to create the index.tpl file that Smarty will display. This needs to be located in the $template_dir.

Example 2.8. /web/www.example.com/guestbook/templates/index.tpl


{* Smarty *}

Hello {$name}, welcome to Smarty!

    

Technical Note

{* Smarty *} is a template comment. It is not required, but it is good practice to start all your template files with this comment. It makes the file easy to recognize regardless of the file extension. For example, text editors could recognize the file and turn on special syntax highlighting.

Now lets edit index.php. We'll create an instance of Smarty, assign() a template variable and display() the index.tpl file.

Example 2.9. Editing /web/www.example.com/docs/guestbook/index.php


<?php

require_once(SMARTY_DIR . 'Smarty.class.php');

$smarty = new Smarty();

$smarty->setTemplateDir('/web/www.example.com/guestbook/templates/');
$smarty->setCompileDir('/web/www.example.com/guestbook/templates_c/');
$smarty->setConfigDir('/web/www.example.com/guestbook/configs/');
$smarty->setCacheDir('/web/www.example.com/guestbook/cache/');

$smarty->assign('name','Ned');

//** un-comment the following line to show the debug console
//$smarty->debugging = true;

$smarty->display('index.tpl');

?>

    

Note

In our example, we are setting absolute paths to all of the Smarty directories. If /web/www.example.com/guestbook/ is within your PHP include_path, then these settings are not necessary. However, it is more efficient and (from experience) less error-prone to set them to absolute paths. This ensures that Smarty is getting files from the directories you intended.

Now navigate to the index.php file with the web browser. You should see "Hello Ned, welcome to Smarty!"

You have completed the basic setup for Smarty!