How Important is Smarty for PHP Developers?

At present, PHP is more popular than other server-side programming languages. The latest versions of PHP further simplifies website and web application development by providing an array of new language features, enhanced speed, and reduced resource consumption. The programmers also have option to execute the code written in PHP 7 in two distinct ways – embed the PHP code into HTML code or execute the PHP code through frameworks and content management systems.

While developing small and simple web applications, many developers prefer embedding PHP code into HTML code. But they had to embed new PHP scripts while adding new features and functionalities to the web application. The additional scripts make the application code complex and messy. As a template engine, Smarty helps programmers to keep the application code simple and maintainable by keeping business logic and presentation separated. The developers can further use Smarty to parse templates into PHP scripts, and reuse the parsed templates seamlessly.

Features that Make Smarty Useful for PHP Developers

Keep Business Logic and Presentation Separate

Smarty is not a PHP framework. But like robust PHP frameworks, it enables users to implement model-view-controller (MVC) paradigm. The programmers can use Smarty to keep the application’s business logic (PHP code) and presentation (HTML and CSS) separated. The separation helps programmers to prevent the application code from becoming complex and messy. Also, the separation makes it easier for them to maintain and update the PHP applications within a short amount of time.

Faster Parsing Engine

Smarty is designed as a template engine. It helps PHP programmers to parse templates into PHP scripts. The version 3 of Smarty further comes with a rewritten and new template parser. The redesigned template parser makes Smarty faster than other template engines for PHP. Also, it enables developers to control template syntax, and avail functions like in-template math, recursive template and line-precision error messages.

Keep Templates Fast and Maintainable

Smarty compiles a template into PHP script only once when the application is invoked for the first time. It does not recompile the templates each time the application is invoked. Also, it does not require users to manage or maintained the compiled versions of templates. The one-time parsing and compilation boosts the web application’s performance significantly, in addition to making templates fast and maintainable.

Template Portability

The programmers can use Smarty to parse templates into reusable PHP scripts. But the templates still remain language-agnostic. The developers can use specialized tools to compile the Smarty templates into JavaScript and other programming languages. Also, they can easily port the templates to other programming languages with identical syntax rules.

Template Security

While using Smarty, the programmers can edit the templates without managing their compiled versions. But it does not allow users to access and make changes to the templates directly. The users have to make changes to the templates through specific Smarty functions. The Smarty security feature boosts the web application’s security by preventing third-party users to access or modify the templates directly.

Template Caching

Smarty further enables programmers to boost the performance of PHP applications by caching templates which require longer computation time. They can further call two simple functions – display() and fetch() – to store the cached output in a single file. Hence, a single file will contain multiple template and configuration files. The web developers can further specify what must be cached and for how long the templates need to be cached.

Template Inheritance

The latest version of Smarty comes with a new feature called template inheritance. The new feature enables programmers to maintain templates as single pages. The users are no longer required to manage templates with specific tags. They can further make one template inherit content from another template, and change the content blocks within each template smoothly. The feature makes it easier for PHP programmers to manage and maintain templates.

Despite being an open source template engine, Smarty has been updating at regular intervals. The PHP developers can use Smarty 3 to avail a new template parser and runtime template inheritance. However, the web developers must keep in mind the specific requirements of each project while opting for Smarty.