Using php include

[timbrux]

I'm placing a menu at the top of all my web pages and I will be making frequent additions to it. I don't want to make the changes to every web page every time I add or change the menu.

What's the best technique for doing this? Could I use the php command as follows or is there a better way?


<?php
error_reporting(E_ALL ^ E_NOTICE);
echo file_get_contents('http://www.timestenmarketing.com/menu.htm');
?>

[Evic]

I would simply do the following:

1. Make your menu howver you want, can be plain HTML, PHP, whatever.
2. On all of your pages add the following line of code where you would like your menu displayed:

<? require_once("menu_file.php"); ?>

You can take a look at the php.net documentation to determine if require, require_once, or include better suit your needs, but I am sure require_once is what you will want.

[refrost]

I would simply do the following:

1. Make your menu howver you want, can be plain HTML, PHP, whatever.
2. On all of your pages add the following line of code where you would like your menu displayed:

<? require_once("menu_file.php"); ?>

You can take a look at the php.net documentation to determine if require, require_once, or include better suit your needs, but I am sure require_once is what you will want.

Another thing you can do on each of your pages, if you have a common header, is define the HTML title that will be passed to "Header" code. This gives some differentiation in the browser history display.

Example:

$g_title='View Cart';
include_once ('header.php');

// which contains: echo "<title> $g_title </title>";

include_once ('mainmenu.php');


It may be handy.

Ralph Frost

[iany]

You could of course design your menu in CSS!

Ian