Is it possible to use PHP to include the contents of the <body> on one page, and add it to the <body> of the other page, while doing the same thing for the header? Or is it just easier / better to use two pages? This is kind of what I'm going for:
Some Page
<html>
<head>
- nav.php's header -
- stuff special to Some Page -
</head>
<body>
- nav.php's body -
- content special to Some Page -
</body>
</html>
I know the require statement can be used to take the whole contents of a file. Is there some sort of "merge" statement to kind of merge the pages together?
You are going to run into all sorts of security, re-use and maintenance issues if you rely on the inline behaviour of included files in PHP. But if you stick to some simple rules you can avoid these problems:
So applying these to your base page above, and observing the established good practice of putting includes/requires at the top of your page....
<?php
// always start your page with a PHP block - it makes interfering with the headers
// much less painful
require_once('nav.inc.php');
function local_head_content()
{
...
}
function local_body_content()
{
...
}
?>
<html>
<head>
<?php
nav_head_content();
local_head_content();
?>
</head>
<body>
<?php
nav_body_content();
local_body_content();
</body>
</html>
But it would probably be better to invoke local_head_content() / local_body_content() as callbacks from nav content.
(yes it is possible to do what you ask, even without function calls - but it would be a very bad idea which is why I've not explained how to do this).
A more conventional approach to solving the problem of shared content across different files is to use a front controller pattern - instead of the webserver selecting the page specific content, this is done in the PHP code with all URLs pointing to the same entry script.