Smarty

[CJNE]

Hello,
I'm pretty new with Smarty and i really like it's features. There is one thing though that i can't figure out how to do with smarty.

I want to iterate over a result set directly in a template, something like:
{foreach from=$resultSet item="row"}
{$row.col1} ...
{/foreach}

where $resultSet is a Pear DB result set.
I looked at doing a block plugin but i don't think that would work..?

Why do i want to do this? Well i just figured it would be more efficient to iterate the result set directly, it would eliminiate the creating of array and filling it up step.

Regards,
Johan Isacsson

[messju]

you can do it with a block-function and the $repeat-parameter.

but i don't think that it's much more efficient than assigning to an array and loop over that.

did you really measure the difference, or is it just a feeling that it's more efficient to loop in the template?

[CJNE]

I haven't measured performance of it but without considering any overhead added by doing it as a block-function (if any) it must be more efficient considering you don't have to do the array copy operation.
Don't know wether there is a noticeable difference in speed doing so but i imagine it might make some difference on hight traffic sites.

I got the impression that $content passed in to a block function is already parsed by smarty, so my {$col1} inside the block would not work, maybe i should read that section again...

Is it possible to make a block function be as efficient as or more efficient than section/foreach ?

[messju]

you save the array-copy operation, but you may occupy the database-result for a longer time, if you do it in the template (especially if you don't have output-buffering enabled). it really depends on the particular situation.

the $content is already parsed, yes. the trick is to assign the result and to let the contents be displayed on the next iteration of the block.
like this:
[php:1:856b68138b]
function smarty_block_db_foreach($params, $content, &$smarty, &$repeat) {
$smarty->assign($params['assign'], $row = next_row_from_db());
$repeat = (bool)$row; /* set to true if there was another row */
return $content; /* return contents of the previous iteration */
}
----
template:
{db_foreach assign=row} {* pass the variablename as assign-attribute *}
..{$row|@debug_print_var}
{/db_foreach}
[/php:1:856b68138b]

[CJNE]

thanks, i'll give it a try once i got apache working again (php5 on windows is a bit unstable )