Smarty Manual
Prev | Chapter 7. Built-in Functions | Next

# {insert}

`{insert}` tags work much like `{include}` tags, except that `{insert}` tags are NOT cached when template caching is enabled. They will be executed on every invocation of the template.

Attribute Name | Type | Required | Default | Description
--- | --- | --- | --- | ---
name | string | Yes | n/a | The name of the insert function (insert_name)
assign | string | No | n/a | The name of the template variable the output will be assigned to
script | string | No | n/a | The name of the php script that is included before the insert function is called
[var ...] | [var type] | No | n/a | variable to pass to insert function

Let's say you have a template with a banner slot at the top of the page. The banner can contain any mixture of HTML, images, flash, etc. so we can't just use a static link here, and we don't want this contents cached with the page. In comes the {insert} tag: the template knows #banner_location_id# and #site_id# values (gathered from a config file), and needs to call a function to get the banner contents.

Example 7-22. function {insert}
    {* example of fetching a banner *}
    {insert name="getBanner" lid=#banner_location_id# sid=#site_id#}

In this example, we are using the name "getBanner" and passing the parameters #banner_location_id# and #site_id#. Smarty will look for a function named insert_getBanner() in your PHP application, passing the values of #banner_location_id# and #site_id# as the first argument in an associative array. All {insert} function names in your application must be prepended with "insert_" to remedy possible function name-space conflicts. Your insert_getBanner() function should do something with the passed values and return the results. These results are then displayed in the template in place of the {insert} tag. In this example, Smarty would call this function: insert_getBanner(array("lid" => "12345","sid" => "67890")); and display the returned results in place of the {insert} tag.

- If you supply the `assign` attribute, the output of the `{insert}` tag will be assigned to this template variable instead of being output to the template.

  > Note: Assigning the output to a template variable isn't too useful with caching enabled.

- If you supply the `script` attribute, this php script will be included (only once) before the `{insert}` function is executed. This is the case where the insert function may not exist yet, and a php script must be included first to make it work.

  The path can be either absolute, or relative to `$trusted_dir`. When `$security` is enabled, the script must reside in `$trusted_dir`.

The Smarty object is passed as the second argument. This way you can reference and modify information in the Smarty object from within the `{insert}` function.

> Technical Note: It is possible to have portions of the template not cached. If you have caching turned on, `{insert}` tags will not be cached. They will run dynamically every time the page is created, even within cached pages. This works good for things like banners, polls, live weather, search results, user feedback areas, etc.

See also `{include}`

Prev | Home | Next
{include_php} | Up | {ldelim},{rdelim}