Basic Installation

Technical Note: This installation guide makes the assumption that you are familiar with your web server setup, your PHP setup, and your operating system directory naming conventions. In these examples we use a Unix filesystem, so be sure you make the appropriate adjustments for your environment.

The following examples assume that "/php/includes" is in your PHP include_path. See the PHP manual for information on setting this up.

First install the Smarty library files. These are the PHP files that you DO NOT edit. They are shared among all applications and they only get updated when you upgrade to a new version of Smarty.

Technical Note: We recommend that you do not edit the Smarty library files. This makes upgrades much easier for you. You DO NOT need to edit these files to configure your applications! Use an instance of the Smarty class, which we'll get to in the sample setup below.

This is a list of the required library files that come with Smarty:

Example 2-1. Smarty library files list

Smarty.class.php
Smarty_Compiler.class.php
Config_File.class.php
debug.tpl
/plugins/*.php (all of them!)

You can either place these library files within your PHP include_path, or in any directory as long as you define that with the SMARTY_DIR constant. We'll show an example of both.

Here is how you create an instance of Smarty in your PHP scripts:

Example 2-2. Create Smarty instance from include_path

require('Smarty.class.php');
$smarty = new Smarty;

If the library files are outside of your PHP include_path, you must define the absolute path with the SMARTY_DIR constant. SMARTY_DIR must end with a slash. Lets say we place our Smarty library files in "/usr/local/lib/php/Smarty/".

Example 2-3. Create Smarty instance from SMARTY_DIR

define(SMARTY_DIR,'/usr/local/lib/php/Smarty/');
require(SMARTY_DIR.'Smarty.class.php');
$smarty = new Smarty;

Now the library files are in place, it's time to setup the Smarty directories.

For our installation example, we will be setting up the Smarty environment for a guest book application. We picked an application only for the purpose of a directory naming convention. You can use the same environment for any application, just replace "guestbook" with the name of your app.

Be sure you know the location of your web server document root. In our example, the document root is "/web/www.domain.com/docs/".

The Smarty directories are defined in the class variables $template_dir, $compile_dir, $config_dir and $cache_dir, which default to the values "templates", "templates_c", "configs" and "cache" respectively. In our example, we'll place all of these directories under "/web/www.domain.com/smarty/guestbook/".

Technical Note: As a rule of thumb, none of these directories should be under the document root of your web server. This is recommended to avoid any possible direct access. You may, for example, have config files with sensitive data.

You will need as least one file under your document root, and that is the script accessed by the web browser. We will call our script "index.php", and place it in a subdirectory under the document root called "/guestbook/".

Technical Note: It is convenient to setup the web server so that "index.php" can be identified as the default directory index, so if you access "http://www.domain.com/guestbook/", the index.php script will be executed without "index.php" in the URL. In Apache you can set this up by adding "index.php" onto the end of your DirectoryIndex setting (separate each entry with a space.)

Lets take a look at the file structure so far:

Example 2-4. Example file structure

/usr/local/lib/php/Smarty/Smarty.class.php
/usr/local/lib/php/Smarty/Smarty_Compiler.class.php
/usr/local/lib/php/Smarty/Config_File.class.php
/usr/local/lib/php/Smarty/debug.tpl
/usr/local/lib/php/Smarty/plugins/*.php

/web/www.mydomain.com/smarty/guestbook/templates/
/web/www.mydomain.com/smarty/guestbook/templates_c/
/web/www.mydomain.com/smarty/guestbook/configs/
/web/www.mydomain.com/smarty/guestbook/cache/

/web/www.mydomain.com/docs/guestbook/index.php

Technical Note: The $config_dir and $cache_dir are not absolutely necessary if you do not plan on using config files or template caching. It is probably a good idea to set them up anyways, in the case you decide to use them later.

Smarty will need write access to the $compile_dir and $cache_dir, so be sure the web server user can write to them. This is usually user "nobody" and group "nobody". For OS X users, the default is user "web" and group "web". If you are using Apache, you can look in your httpd.conf file (usually in "/usr/local/apache/conf/") to see what user and group are being used.

Example 2-5. Setting file permissions


chown nobody:nobody /web/www.mydomain.com/smarty/templates_c/
chmod 770 /web/www.mydomain.com/smarty/templates_c/

chown nobody:nobody /web/www.mydomain.com/smarty/cache/
chmod 770 /web/www.mydomain.com/smarty/cache/

Technical Note: chmod 770 will be fairly tight security, it only allows user "nobody" and group "nobody" read/write access to the directories. If you would like to open up read access to anyone (mostly for your own convenience of viewing these files), you can use 775 instead.

We need to create the index.tpl file that Smarty will load. This will be located in your $template_dir.

Example 2-6. Editing /web/www.mydomain.com/smarty/templates/index.tpl


{* Smarty *}

Hello, {$name}!

Technical Note: {* Smarty *} is a template comment. It is not required, but it is good practice to start all your template files with this comment. It makes the file easy to recognize regardless of the file extension. For example, text editors could recognize the file and turn on special syntax highlighting.

Now lets edit index.php. We'll create an instance of Smarty, assign a template variable and display the index.tpl file.

Example 2-7. Editing /web/www.mydomain.com/docs/guestbook/index.php


define(SMARTY_DIR,'/usr/local/lib/php/Smarty/');
require(SMARTY_DIR.'Smarty.class.php');

$smarty = new Smarty;

$smarty->template_dir = '/web/www.mydomain.com/smarty/guestbook/templates/';
$smarty->compile_dir = '/web/www.mydomain.com/smarty/guestbook/templates_c/';
$smarty->config_dir = '/web/www.mydomain.com/smarty/guestbook/configs/';
$smarty->cache_dir = '/web/www.mydomain.com/smarty/guestbook/cache/';

$smarty->assign('name','Ned');

$smarty->display('index.tpl');

Technical Note: In our example, we are setting absolute paths to all of the Smarty directories. If '/web/www.mydomain.com/smarty/guestbook/' is within your PHP include_path, then these settings are not necessary. However, it is more efficient and (from experience) less error-prone to set them to absolute paths. This ensures that Smarty is getting files from the directories you intended.

Now load the index.php file from your web browser. You should see "Hello, Ned!"

You have completed the basic setup for Smarty!