Chapter 5. Variable Modifiers

Variable modifiers can be applied to variables, custom functions or strings. To apply a modifier, specify the value followed by a | (pipe) and the modifier name. A modifier may accept additional parameters that affect its behavior. These parameters follow the modifer name and are separated by a : (colon). Also, all php-functions can be used as modifiers implicitly (more below) and modifiers can be combined. .

{* apply modifier to a variable *}
{$title|upper}

{* modifier with parameters *}
{$title|truncate:40:'...'}

{* apply modifier to a function parameter *}
{html_table loop=$myvar|upper}

{* with parameters *}
{html_table loop=$myvar|truncate:40:'...'}

{* apply modifier to literal string *}
{'foobar'|upper}

{* using date_format to format the current date *}
{$smarty.now|date_format:"%Y/%m/%d"}

{* apply modifier to a custom function *}
{mailto|upper address='smarty@example.com'}

{* using  php's str_repeat *}
{'='|str_repeat:80}

{* php's count *}
{$myArray|@count}

{* php's shuffle on servers's ip *}
{$smarty.server.SERVER_ADDR|shuffle}

(* this will uppercase and truncate the whole array *}
<select name="name_id">
{html_options output=$myArray|upper|truncate:20}
</select>

• If you apply a modifier to an array variable instead of a single value variable, the modifier will be applied to every value in that array. If you really want the modifier to work on an entire array as a value, you must prepend the modifier name with a @ symbol.

  Example: {$articleTitle|@count} - will print out the number of elements in the $articleTitle array using the php count() function as a modifier.

• Modifiers are autoloaded from the $plugins_dir or can be registered explicitly with the register_modifier() function. The later is useful for sharing a function between php scripts and smarty templates.

• All php-functions can be used as modifiers implicitly, as demonstrated in the example above. However, using php-functions as modifiers has two little pitfalls:

  • First - sometimes the order of the function-parameters is not the desirable one. Formatting $foo with {"%2.f"|sprintf:$foo} actually works, but asks for the more intuitive, like {$foo|string_format:"%2.f"} that is provided by the Smarty distribution.

  • Secondly - if $security is enabled, all php-functions that are to be used as modifiers have to be declared trusted in the MODIFIER_FUNCS element of the $security_settings array.

See also register_modifier(), combining modifiers. and extending smarty with plugins

{$articleTitle}
{$articleTitle|capitalize}
{$articleTitle|capitalize:true}

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Next X-Men Film, X3, Delayed.