I am trying to create a generic method that I can use to escape page properties as query parameters. The current problem is that I need to replace all spaces with "+".

I have created a function that will do this, but am not certain how to call the function from the template. The simple function is:

function queryEscape($var) {
return str_replace(' ', '+', $var);
}

I was hoping to be able to place the following in the template $queryEscape($title) to escape the page title, but this does not work. Does anyone know if this is possible.

Hi

There's already a php function that does what you need (creating escaped query strings from "raw" strings):
http://php.net/manual/de/function.http-build-query.php
or for just single values:
http://php.net/manual/en/function.urlencode.php

As for your problem: Yes, that doesn't work. The template engine isn't that smart. It can't correctly parse $queryEscape to a function and then pass the parsed value of $title as parameter in there.
What you could do is mess around with PHPs magic "__get" method to automatically convert fields to url-encoded strings when they are prefixed with a certain string.
Sounds complicated? It isn't. Here's what you do:
Add the following method to the Page_Controller:

public function __get($field){
	// prefix for queries
	$key = 'query_';
	
	$len = strlen($key);
	if(substr($field, 0, $len) === $key){
		$f = substr($field, $len);
		$value = parent::__get($f);
		
		return urlencode($value);
	}
	
	return parent::__get($field);
}

Now you can output a escaped query string in your template like so:

$query_Title
$query_Content
... etc ...

If you're wondering why/how this works, read this: http://php.net/manual/en/language.oop5.overloading.php#language.oop5.overloading.members

Hey, that's an awesome little snippet!

fantastic......spent the last couple hours trying to find a way to pass SS template content into flash through flashvars (and encoding it properly)...this is just the ticket.

cheers banal!

:) Glad this was useful.
When I want to load content from SilverStripe into flash I usually just create an XML template for the Page in question. Flash will then load the page, rendered as XML (i.e. mysite.com/page/xml)
For large chunks of content or content-structures (like a menu) this is way better than flashvars. For tiny bits of content, flashvars is ok I guess :)

Edit: Ugh. I just wrote a post enclosed in smileys... shame on me.

yep, thats what I would normally do too, but this was for a SlideShowPro template which already reads in the XML file from SSP Director. I use the flashvars just to pass in a couple extra content fields from SilverStripe.

Cheers
Nick

@chadws: I was hoping to be able to place the following in the template $queryEscape($title) to escape the page title, but this does not work. Does anyone know if this is possible.

You can get close to this--$title.Parse(MyParser)--by defining a custom TextParser.

class MyParser extends TextParser {
  public function parse () {
    $content = $this->content;
  //do something with the content
    return $result;
  }
}

does anyone know how to use $query_Title with an absolute link

eg: $query_AbsoluteLink

$query_Title works but not $query_AbsoluteLink

Basically i'd like a validator link at the footer of every page.

eg:

<http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mydomain.com%2Foffers%2Fcardiff%2F;ss=1;outline=1;No200=1>;

template url
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=$query_AbsoluteLink;ss=1;outline=1;No200=1"