how to use Smarty better with PHP?

Question

I found that using Smarty with PHP, sometimes extra time will need to be used for

1) using quite different syntax than PHP itself
2) need to check small cases, b

Answer 1

Smarty is certainly one of the best template engines out there. In my experience though people would be well advised to think their use cases through more thoroughly before they use any templating engine on top of PHP at all.

First, PHP itself is perfect for templates. Pretty much the only justification for using another templating engine is if you're allowing untrusted users to create or edit templates, since they could execute all kinds of badness. So, if your project has user-editable templates, use Smarty. If not, stick with PHP.

If your problem is separation of code and layout, I suggest you look into implementing a lightweight MVC-style execution model. Or, to put it more condescendingly, if you have deeper logic code in your template, it's probably time to do some refactoring.

Performance is another consideration. Yes, rendering a Smarty template comes with a cost. But after it's done, the output should be cached, leading you to improved execution times. Same goes for PHP templates. PHP allows you to implement all kinds of granular caching models through the use of its output buffers. But beware of premature optimization: do that only after you're code complete and have identified what the actual bottlenecks are!

The biggest cost when using Smarty or any other engine comes in the form of developer time. It's another layer of complexity and inevitably you will find yourself in situations where you have to trick the engine into doing what you could have accomplished within pure PHP all along.