A while back I did some work in scheme lisp and was much impressed by the readability of the code which generates the HTML – basically a nice nested tree of self closing tags, where you can build up levels of abstraction, while still be close to the exact HTML your rendering and have control over it.

Then I had to go back to PHP for pragmatic reasons, and I just didn’t gel with any of the frameworks or tag libraries around. I experimented with various template engines but it seemed annoying to break syntax and use yet another language. I did find an implementation of lisp in PHP, which I though was nifty, but the people who hired me as a consultant were eagerly awaiting their code bundle in PHP.

PHP just wont die. It may not be an elegant language but its the workhorse of the internet.

I had to find a way to close tags automatically and keep everything readable. There’s a lot of bad PHP code around, where the script basically progresses from the top of the web page downwards, mixing php code snippets with HTML, javascript and SQL statements – not a recipe for clarity.

The nested xilla_tag functions build up a tree built with PHP arrays.  This tree is then walked and HTML tags generated when you call render_tags().  As the tree is written out, the end tags are automatically added, and the resulting output indented.

Example Comparison

To make a valid comparison, I use the same HTML sample given in another tag library, namely HAML – see phphaml.sourceforge.net

Compare ‘Old school’ PHP program code -

To lispy php code using xilla tags. Read from the bottom sample_page() upwards -

Download

I’ve uploaded xilla_tags to google code. You can use it freely under a permissive BSD licence – see the project page or download here.

I hope you find it a more readable way of generating your web page programs in PHP,

enjoy,

gord