Hi,

Docs page “Linking to Stylesheets” says:

you can allow your stylesheets to run through the full template parser so tags and PHP can be used. To do so, just use a normal path variable to access your stylesheet. If you specify a template this way make sure that it is set to “CSS Stylesheet” as the Template Type.

Having done this I defined PHP function in stylesheet template and made several calls to it from the same template.

Now I am observing several strange effects:

1) if PHP function is defined in stylesheet after loading a page I get PHP error “Call to undefined function”;

2) if PHP function is defined in include file and called from stylesheet, the page loads, but is unstyled; if I load stylesheet alone, I find in it PHP error “Call to undefined function”;

3) if PHP function is defined BOTH in in stylesheet and in include file, everything works as expected.

This seems very strange to me. PHP should work in cases (1) and (2) and it should not work in case (3), but now it is vice versa.

How should be PHP function to be defined for use in stylesheets?

I use ExpressionEngine 1.6.1 build 20071204 on EngineHosting.

Thanks.

Does seem weird- can you paste your code?  And is php being parsed input or output?

Here is top part of the page template:

Here is contents of browser_sniffing.php.

Here is one of the calls to PHP function from stylesheet (in the same stylesheet there is   the same function definition as in browser_sniffing.php file):

As I said in previous post, everything works if there is both include statement and function definition in stylesheet; if there is only include or only function definition in stylesheet I get PHP error.

Ah- ok, templates are parsed separately.  So if you include a php file (or have php in a template)- even if you embed another template, the embedded template doesn’t have access to any of the variables/functions/etc in that index template.  So yep- this would be expected behavior.  You don’t need the include in the index template- unless you’re using it there as well.  But if you call the function in the css template?  You’ll need the php included there as well.

Also- I suspect there’s a pure css way to do this- might broach it in the design forum.

Anyhoo- that make sense?

templates are parsed separately.
[...]
You don’t need the include in the index template- unless you’re using it there as well.

That means that I am wrong supposing that in case (2) PHP should work.

The main question remains: why PHP does not work in case (1) - both when PHP function is defined in stylesheet template an when there is include in in stylesheet template?

And why PHP starts to work in case (3) -  since templates are parsed separately, include in main template should have no effect on PHP in stylesheet template, but it seems that it does have effect.

Hi, Laisvunas,

I’d recommend some reduction testing.  for instance, create a template group called “blog” and create a template in that called test, put this in it:

Now create a template called style, with PHP set on Output, and put this in it:

does that work for you?

Hi Lisa,

Thanks for suggestion. I tried your code and it works correctly.

It means that behavior I described in this thread is not a general, but quite specific problem, somehow related with some other code I use in my templates.

Still I am confused what might cause such weird behavior and what might be a proper solution. A solution I adopted is this: I wrapped the function into a plugin and wrapped in a plugin it works correctly in my stylesheet templates.

Agreed- it’s weird.  I’d say #2 would be the proper approach.  But the optimum would be to go the plugin route.  If you like, I can bump it up to the crew.  They might spot the reason for the oddness.

Hi Robin,

Of course it would be good to know reasons for this behavior. But as yet I even do not know if I would be able to reproduce it starting from blank web and stylesheet templates and reduce to something more definite. I will investigate this behavior more closely in following days and post the results in this thread if I found anything.

Sounds good- let us know if you can reproduce consistently.  Does strike me as odd.

Laisvunas:

  I stumbled on your post while browsing the forum and was wondering if it would serve you better to create a plug-in that sets a global variable.  This way you can access what you need or call the method from anywhere within any template.

  I had a simular problem in accessing an html manipulating function http://expressionengine.com/forums/viewthread/84813/. The end solution took care of my scoping problem.

  Hope this is of some help, or at least food for thought.

Herb

Thanks for your contribution, Herb. Closing this old thread ...