Professional CodeIgniter

Chapter 4: Creating the Main Web Site

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Since you ’ re going to pass two arrays to the view, here ’ s what that view, called home , looks like. Notice

that it is processing an array called $mainf (which will hold the main featured item) and $sidef (which

will contain a list of sidebar featured products).

< div id=’pleft’ >

< ?php

echo “ < img src=’”.$mainf[‘image’].”’ border=’0’ align=’left’/ > \n”;

echo “ < h2 > ”.$mainf[‘name’].” < /h2 > \n”;

echo “ < p > ”.$mainf[‘shortdesc’]. “ < br/ > \n”;

echo anchor(‘welcome/product/’.$mainf[‘id’],’see details’). “ < br/ > \n”;

echo anchor(‘welcome/cart/’.$mainf[‘id’],’buy now’). “ < /p > \n”;

? >

< /div >

< div id=’pright’ >

< ?php

foreach ($sidef as $key = > $list){

echo “ < img src=’”.$list[‘thumbnail’].”’ border=’0’ align=’left’/ > \n”;

echo “ < h4 > ”.$list[‘name’].” < /h4 > \n”;

echo “ < p > ”;

echo anchor(‘welcome/product/’.$list[‘id’],’see details’). “ < br/ > \n”;

echo anchor(‘welcome/cart/’.$list[‘id’],’buy now’). “ < /p > \n”;

}

? >

< /div >

Notice that the main feature is placed inside a div uniquely identified as pleft. The sidebar features are

placed inside a div uniquely identified as pright. Doing things this way allows you to create the

appropriate CSS rules for layout.

Before discussing anything else, it ’ s good to talk about an alternative syntax using short tags. To use this

alternative syntax, you must have short tag support enabled on your PHP installation. Some developers

prefer this alternative syntax to what you see in the previous example. Some prefer the “ old - fashioned

way. ” There really is no difference other than your preference.

Here ’ s what the previous example would look like with the alternative syntax:

< div id=’pleft’ >

< img src=’ < ?= $mainf[‘image’];? > ’ border=’0’ align=’left’/ >

< h2 > < ?= $mainf[‘name’];? > < /h2 >

< p > < ?= $mainf[‘shortdesc’];? > < br/ >

< ?= anchor(‘welcome/product/’.$mainf[‘id’],’see details’);? > < br/ >

< ?= anchor(‘welcome/cart/’.$mainf[‘id’],’buy now’);? > < /p >

< /div >

< div id=’pright’ >

<? foreach ($sidef as $key = > $list) :? >

< img src=’ < ?= $list[‘thumbnail’];? > ’ border=’0’ align=’left’/ >

< h4 > < ?= $list[‘name’];? > < /h4 >

< p > < ?= anchor(‘welcome/product/’.$list[‘id’],’see details’);? > < br/ >

< ?= anchor(‘welcome/cart/’.$list[‘id’],’buy now’);? > < /p >

<? endforeach;? >

< /div >