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Variable modifiers

The variables used for personalization can be altered with modifiers. A modifier is called on the variable by appending it with a | before the closing curly brace. E.g. if you want to apply the tolower modifier on variable {$name} you use: {$name|tolower}.

An example of how the modifiers can be used for a personalized mail is:

Hello {$name|escape},

Your name {$name|escape} is {$name|strlen} characters long.

Bye!

Besides calling one modifier on a variable it is possible to chain modifiers. E.g. you have name data. However, the strings containing names, are sometimes capitalized and sometimes not. You want to use these names and you want to be sure that a name starts with a capital and the rest of the name is in lower case. Doing this is easy. You use {$name|tolower|ucfirst}. The first modifier tolower, will make sure that the name is all in lower case. Then modifier ucfirst is applied, which will capitalize the first character. Note that if you call a modifier that does not exist, no effect takes place.

The following table lists all supported modifiers:

Modifier Description
base64_encode base64 encoder
base64_decode base64 decoder
cat:"string" concatenates a string to variable
count count number of elements in variable
count_characters count number of characters in a string
count_paragraphs count number of paragraphs in a text (by counting newlines)
count_words count number of words in a text
default:default value use default value if variable is not set
empty check whether a variable is empty
escape:"string" escape html characters (or other chars) inside a string
indent:num = 1:char = " " put num whitespaces in front of every line
md5 perform md5 hashing
nl2br replace newlines with html br tags
range:start = 0:end truncate list to get the items between positions start and end
regex_replace:regex:replace_text replace substrings using regular expression
replace:"string1":"string2" replace occurrences of string1 with string2
sha1 perform sha1 hashing
sha256 not available; hash with {hash($text, 'sha256')}
sha512 not available; hash with {hash($text, 'sha512')}
spacify:separator = " " place a separator between every input character
strlen count the characters in a string
strstr:"substring":before = false return the string starting from the first occurrence of substring if before = false. otherwise return the string until the first occurrence.
substr:start position:length return the substring from start position onward, optionally truncated after length characters
tolower convert all characters to lower case
toupper convert all characters to upper case
trim trim the white space and endline characters off both sides of the input
truncate:length = 80:etc = "...":break_words = false truncate inputs that are longer than length and append etc at the end. break_words = true allows truncating parts of words
ucfirst replace first character with an upper case character
urlencode encode input for use in an url
urldecode decode input for use in an url

base64_encode

With this modifier you encode the data into base64. Note that this modifier does not have an effect on arrays. Usage:

The base64 encoding of {$name} is {$name|base64_encode}.

base64_decode

With this modifier you can decode base64 encoded information. Usage:

The decoded information is {$base64encoded|base64_decode}

cat

With this modefier you can concatenate a string to your variable. If the variable is an arrary, the string will be used. Usage:

{$name|cat:"string"}

count

With this modifier you can count the number of elements in an array. If the variable is not an array a 0 will be returned. Usage:

{$names|count}

count_characters

With this modifier you can count the number of characters in your text. If this modifier is called on an variable that contains an array, 0 is returned. Usage:

{$name|count_characters}

count_paragraphs

With this modifier you can count the number of paragraphs in your text. If this modifier is applied on an array a 0 is returned. Usage:

The following text has {$text|count_paragraphs} paragraph.
Text:
{$text}

count_words

With this modifier you can count the number of words in your text. If this modifier is applied on an array a 0 is returned. Usage:

"{$text}" has {$text|count_words} words.

default

With this modifier you can set a default value that will be used if the value does not exist. Usage:

This will always show {$name|default:"customer"}

empty

This modifier is not in use anymore. You can check if a variable contains a value by converting it to a boolean, as shown in the example below. Usage:

{if !$name}
    Dear customer,
{else}
    Dear {$name},
{/if}

escape

With this modifier you can escape, or encode, the variable. The form is: escape:"value". The possible values are: "html", "url", and "base64". If no value is specified "html" is used. On an array this modifier is ignored. Usage:

{$text|escape:"html"}
is equal to:
{$text|escape}

indent

With this modifier you can add indentation to your text. You can specify the amount of indentation and the character(s) that is used for indentation. The syntax is indent:num:char, where "num" is the number of characters and "char" the character. The default of these is 1 and space respectively. On an array this modifier is ignored. Usage:

{$text|indent:4:" "}

md5

With this modifier you get the MD5 checksum of your text. If you use it on an array, the MD checksum is calculated over the entire array excluding the keys. Usage:

{$text|md5}

nl2br

This modifier replaces your newlines with the equivalent HTML br tags. This enables you to write plain text that will be truncated in html mode. On an array this value is ignored. Usage:

{$text|nl2br}

range

With this modifier you can take a range from your input if your input is an array. The form is range:start:end where start is the start position and end is the exclusive end position. If the variable is not an array, the value will be ignored. Usage:

{$array|range:2:5}

regex_replace

With this modifier you can replace parts of your text, based on a regular expression, with other text. If the variable is an array this value will be ignored. Usage:

This will replace each number in the variable string with the string " a number "
{$text|regex_replace:"\d":" a number "}

replace

With modifier replace you can replace a part of your text with some other text. The syntax is: replace:"string1":"string2", where all occurrences of "string1" will be replaced by "string2". When the variable is an array, this modifier does not have an effect. Usage:

{$text|replace:"hi":"hello"}

sha1

With this modifier you get the SHA1 hash of your text. If the variable is an array the SHA1 hash will be calculated over the entire array, excluding the keys. Usage:

{$text|sha1}

sha256

The modifier to get the SHA256 hash of your text is not available anymore. However, you can still get the SHA256 hash using the hash function as shown in the example below. If the variable is an array the SHA256 hash will be calculated over the entire array, excluding the keys. Usage:

{hash($text, 'sha256')}

sha512

The modifier to get the SHA512 hash of your text is not available anymore. However, you can still get the SHA512 hash using the hash function as shown in the example below. If the variable is an array the SHA512 hash will be calculated over the entire array, excluding the keys. Usage:

{hash($text, 'sha512')}

spacify

With this modifier you can add a character, or characters, between each character in your variable. The syntax is spacify:separator, where the default separator is space. If the variable is an array the modifier will be ignored. Usage:

{$text|spacify:"."}

strlen

With this modifier the length of the text in a variable can be obtained. If the variable is an array a 0 will be returned. Usage:

{$text|strlen}

strstr

With this modifier you can search for a string in you variable and get the first occurrence plus the rest of your variable, or you can get everything in the variable till the searched string. The syntax is: strstr:string:before, where string is the searched string and before is a boolean with default false. If the boolean is true, you get what is in the variable before the first occurrence of string. If it is false you get what is in the variable from the first occurrence of string onwards. If the variable is an array the modifier is ignored. Usage:

If the variable holds "Hello world!", this will print Hello, {$variable|strstr:" ":true}
and this will print world!, {$variable|strstr:"w":false}, just like this
{$variable|strstr:"w"}

substr

With this modifier you can obtain a substring from you variable. The syntax is substr:start:length, where start is the starting position in the string (zero indexed) and length is the length you want to obtain. The default for length is the the length of the string minus the starting position. Usage:

If the variable is "0123456789" this will print 2 to 9
{$variable|substr:2}
and this will print 456
{$variable|substr:4:3}

lower

With this modifier you can change all character in your text to lowercase characters. Usage:

{$text|lower}

upper

With this modifier you can change all characters in your text to uppercase characters. Usage:

{$text|upper}

trim

With this modifier you can trim trailing white space and new line characters from your text. The characters that are trimmed are: spaces, tabs, newlines, carriage returns, vertical tabs and end of strings. Usage:

{$text}

truncate

With this modifier it is possible to truncate your text to a certain length. If the text is truncated it is possible to add some characters to indicate that the text is truncated. These extra characters are counted for the truncation length as well. You can also specify whether it is allowed to break words or not. The syntax is: truncate:length:etc:break_words, where length has a default of 80, etc (the replacement), has a default of ... and break_words has as default false.

Usage:

{$text|truncate:50:"....":true}

ucfirst

With this modifier you replace the first character of your text with an uppercase character. Usage:

{$name|ucfirst}

urlencode

With this modifier you can url encode your text. Usage:

{$text|urlencode}

urldecode

With this modifier you can url decode your text. Usage:

{$text|urldecode}

More information

  • [Personalization]