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Q: What's the difference between Smarty and other template engines?
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Q: What do you mean "Compiled PHP Scripts" ?
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Q: Why can't I just use PHPA (http://php-accelerator.co.uk) or Zend Cache?
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Q: Why does smarty have a built in cache? Wouldn't it be better to handle this
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Q: Is Smarty faster than <insert other PHP template engine>?
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Q: How can I be sure to get the best performance from Smarty?
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Q: Do you have a mailing list?
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Q: Can you change the mailing list so reply-to sends to the list and not the
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Q: Smarty doesn't work.
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Q: I get the following error when running Smarty:
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Warning: Smarty error: problem creating directory "templates_c/239/239105369"
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in /path/to/Smarty.class.php on line 542
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Q: I get the following error when running Smarty:
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Warning: Wrong parameter count for preg_replace() in
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Smarty.class.php on line 371
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Q: I get this error when passing variables to {include}:
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Fatal error: Call to undefined function: get_defined_vars() in
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/path/to/Smarty/templates_c/index.tpl.php on line 8
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Q: I get PHP errors in my {if} tag logic.
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Q: I'm changing my php code and/or templates, and my results are not getting
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Q: I'm running Windows 2000 and I get blank content. My compiled PHP files are
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Q: The template goes into an infinite loop when I include included templates
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that pass local variables
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Q: Javascript is causing Smarty errors in my templates.
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Q: I get "SAFE MODE Restriction in effect. ..."-errors when running smarty.
42
Q: Can I use Macromedia's Dreamweaver to edit my templates?
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Q: Dreamweaver is urlencoding the template delimiters when they are in a SRC or
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HREF link. How do I get around this?
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Q: How do I generate different cache files per template based on arguments
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Q: How do I pass a template variable as a parameter? {function param={$varname}}
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Q: How do I include cached template(s) within a non-cached template?
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A: Smarty is a template engine for PHP... but be aware this isn't just another
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PHP template engine. It's much more than that.
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Q: What's the difference between Smarty and other template engines?
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A: Most other template engines for PHP provide basic variable substitution and
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dynamic block functionality. Smarty takes a step further to be a "smart"
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template engine, adding features such as configuration files, template
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functions, variable modifiers (see the docs!) and making all of this
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functionality as easy as possible to use for both programmers and template
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designers. Smarty also compiles the templates into PHP scripts, eliminating
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the need to parse the templates on every invocation, making Smarty extremely
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scalable and manageable for large application needs.
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Q: What do you mean "Compiled PHP Scripts" ?
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A: Smarty reads the template files and creates PHP scripts from them. Once
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these PHP scripts are created, Smarty executes these, never having to parse
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the template files again. If you change a template file, Smarty will
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recreate the PHP script for it. All this is done automatically by Smarty.
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Template designers never need to mess with the generated PHP scripts or even
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know of their existance. (NOTE: you can turn off this compile checking step
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in Smarty for increased performance.)
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Q: Why can't I just use PHPA (http://php-accelerator.co.uk) or Zend Cache?
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A: You certainly can, and we highly recommend it! What PHPA does is caches
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compiled bytecode of your PHP scripts in shared memory or in a file. This
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speeds up server response and saves the compilation step. Smarty creates PHP
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scripts, which PHPA will cache nicely. Now, Smarty's built-in cache is
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something completely different. It caches the _output_ of the template
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contents. For example, if you have a template that requires several database
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queries, Smarty can cache this output, saving the need to call the database
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every time. Smarty and PHPA (or Zend Cache) complement each other nicely. If
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performance is of the utmost importance, we would recommend using one of
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these with any PHP application, using Smarty or not. As you can see in the
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benchmarks, Smartys performance _really_ excels in combination with a PHP
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Q: Why does Smarty have a built in cache? Wouldn't it be better to handle this
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A: Smarty's caching functionality is tightly integrated with the template
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engine, making it quite a bit more flexible than a simple caching wrapper.
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For instance, you can cache select portions of a template page. Let's say
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you have a polling box on your site. With Smarty, you can leave the poll
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dynamic and cache the rest of the page. You can also pass templates
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multiple cache ids, meaning that a template can have several caches
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depending on URL, cookies, etc.
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Q: Is Smarty faster than <insert other PHP template engine>?
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A: See the benchmark page for some performance comparisons. Smarty's approach
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to templates is a bit different from some languages: it compiles templates
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into PHP scripts instead of parsing them on each invocation. This usually
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results in great performance gains, especially with complex templates.
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Coupled with the built-in caching of Smarty templates, the performance is
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Q: How can I be sure to get the best performance from Smarty?
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A: Be sure you set $compile_check=false once your templates are initially
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compiled. This will skip the unneeded step of testing if the template has
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changed since it was last compiled. If you have complex pages that don't
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change too often, turn on the caching engine and adjust your application so
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it doesn't do unnecessary work (like db calls) if a cached page is
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available. See the documentation for examples.
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Q: Do you have a mailing list?
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A: We have a few mailing lists. "general" for you to share your ideas or ask
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questions, "dev" for those interested in the development efforts of Smarty,
124
and "cvs" for those that would like to track the updates made in the cvs
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send a blank e-mail message to:
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smarty-general-subscribe@lists.php.net (subscribe to the general list)
129
smarty-general-unsubscribe@lists.php.net (unsubscribe from the general list)
130
smarty-general-digest-subscribe@lists.php.net (subscribe to digest)
131
smarty-general-digest-unsubscribe@lists.php.net (unsubscribe from digest)
132
smarty-dev-subscribe@lists.php.net (subscribe to the dev list)
133
smarty-dev-unsubscribe@lists.php.net (unsubscribe from the dev list)
134
smarty-cvs-subscribe@lists.php.net (subscribe to the cvs list)
135
smarty-cvs-unsubscribe@lists.php.net (unsubscribe from the cvs list)
136
You can also browse the mailing list archives at
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http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=smarty&r=1&w=2
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Q: Can you change the mailing list so Reply-To sends to the list and not the
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A: Yes we could, but no we won't. Use "Reply-All" in your e-mail client to send
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to the list. http://www.unicom.com/pw/reply-to-harmful.html
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Q: Smarty doesn't work.
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A: You must be using PHP 4.0.6 or later if you use any version of Smarty
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past 2.0.1. Read the BUGS file for more info.
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Q: I get the following error when running Smarty:
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Warning: Smarty error: problem creating directory "templates_c/239/239105369"
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in /path/to/Smarty.class.php on line 542
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A: Your web server user does not have permission to write to the templates_c
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directory, or is unable to create the templates_c directory. Be sure the
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templates_c directory exists in the location defined in Smarty.class.php,
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and the web server user can write to it. If you do not know the web server
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user, chmod 777 the templates_c directory, reload the page, then check the
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file ownership of the files created in templates_c. Or, you can check the
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httpd.conf (usually in /usr/local/apache/conf) file for this setting:
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Q: I get the following error when running Smarty: Warning: Wrong parameter
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count for preg_replace() in Smarty.class.php on line 371
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A: preg_replace had a parameter added in PHP 4.0.2 that Smarty
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requires. Upgrade to at least 4.0.6 to fix all known PHP issues with
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Q: I get this error when passing variables to {include}:
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Fatal error: Call to undefined function: get_defined_vars() in
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/path/to/Smarty/templates_c/index.tpl.php on line 8
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A: get_defined_vars() was added to PHP 4.0.4. If you plan on passing
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variables to included templates, you will need PHP 4.0.6 or later.
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Q: I get PHP errors in my {if} tag logic.
179
A: All conditional qualifiers must be separated by spaces. This syntax will not
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work: {if $name=="Wilma"} You must instead do this: {if $name == "Wilma"}.
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The reason for this is syntax ambiguity. Both "==" and "eq" are equivalent
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in the template parser, so something like {if $nameeq"Wilma"} wouldn't be
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parsable by the tokenizer.
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Q: I'm changing my php code and/or templates, and my results are not getting
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A: This may be the result of your compile or cache settings. If you are
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changing your php code, your templates will not necessarily get recompiled
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to reflect the changes. Use $force_compile during develpment to avoid these
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situations. Also turn off caching during development when you aren't
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specifically testing it. You can also remove everything from your
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compile_dir and cache_dir and reload the page to be sure everything gets
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Q: I'm running Windows 2000 and I get blank content. My compiled PHP files are
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A: There seems to be a problem with some W2k machines and exclusive file
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locking. Comment out the flock() call in _write_file to get around this,
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although be aware this could possibly cause a problem with simultaneous
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writes to a file, especially with caching turned on. NOTE: As of Smarty
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1.4.0, a workaround was put in place that should solve this.
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Q: The template goes into an infinite loop when I include included templates
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that pass local variables
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A: This was fixed in 1.3.2 (new global attribute)
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Q: Javascript is causing Smarty errors in my templates.
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A: Surround your javascript with {literal}{/literal} tags. See the docs.
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Q: I get "SAFE MODE Restriction in effect. ..."-errors when running smarty.
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A: Use $smarty->use_sub_dirs = false when running php in safe mode.
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Q: Can I use Macromedia's Dreamweaver to edit my templates?
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A: Certainly. You might want to change your tag delimiters from {} to something
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that resembles valid HTML, like <!--{ }--> or <{ }> or something similar.
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This way the editor won't view the template tags as errors.
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Q: Dreamweaver is urlencoding the template delimiters when they are in a SRC or
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HREF link. How do I get around this?
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A: In Edit - Properties - Rewrite HTML you can specify if Dreamweaver should
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change special letters to %-equivalent or not. The default is on which
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Q: How do I generate different cache files per template based on arguments
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A: Use your $REQUEST_URI as the cache_id when fetching the page:
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global $REQUEST_URI; // if not already present
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$smarty->display('index.tpl',$REQUEST_URI);
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This will create a separate cache file for each unique URL when you call
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index.tpl. See the documentation for display() and fetch()
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Q: How do I pass a template variable as a parameter? {function param={$varname}}
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A: {function param=$varname} (You cannot nest template delimiters.)
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Q: How do I include cached template(s) within a non-cached template?
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$smarty->caching = true;
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$tpl1 = $smarty->fetch("internal1.tpl");
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$tpl2 = $smarty->fetch("internal2.tpl");
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$tpl3 = $smarty->fetch("internal3.tpl");
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$smarty->assign("tpl1_contents",$tpl1);
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$smarty->assign("tpl2_contents",$tpl2);
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$smarty->assign("tpl3_contents",$tpl3);
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$smarty->caching = false;
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$smarty->display('index.tpl');
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<td>{$tpl1_contents}</td>
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<td>{$tpl2_contents}</td>
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<td>{$tpl3_contents}</td>
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You could write a custom insert function to fetch your internal
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<td>{insert name=fetch_tpl tpl="internal1.tpl"}</td>
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<td>{insert name=fetch_tpl tpl="internal2.tpl"}</td>
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<td>{insert name=fetch_tpl tpl="internal3.tpl"}</td>
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FAQ
