<HTML ><HEAD ><TITLE >Default Variable Handling</TITLE ><META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="Modular DocBook HTML Stylesheet Version 1.7"><LINK REL="HOME" TITLE="Smarty Manual" HREF="index.html"><LINK REL="UP" TITLE="Tips & Tricks" HREF="tips.html"><LINK REL="PREVIOUS" TITLE="Tips & Tricks" HREF="tips.html"><LINK REL="NEXT" TITLE="Passing variable title to header template" HREF="tips.passing.vars.html"><META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"></HEAD ><BODY CLASS="sect1" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#000000" LINK="#0000FF" VLINK="#840084" ALINK="#0000FF" ><DIV CLASS="NAVHEADER" ><TABLE SUMMARY="Header navigation table" WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TH COLSPAN="3" ALIGN="center" >Smarty Manual</TH ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="bottom" ><A HREF="tips.html" ACCESSKEY="P" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="80%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="bottom" >Chapter 18. Tips & Tricks</TD ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="bottom" ><A HREF="tips.passing.vars.html" ACCESSKEY="N" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ></TABLE ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"></DIV ><DIV CLASS="sect1" ><H1 CLASS="sect1" ><A NAME="tips.default.var.handling" ></A >Default Variable Handling</H1 ><P > If a variable is used frequently throughout your templates, applying the <A HREF="language.modifier.default.html" ><TT CLASS="varname" >default</TT > </A > modifier every time it is mentioned can get a bit ugly. You can remedy this by assigning the variable its default value with the <A HREF="language.custom.functions.html#language.function.assign" ><TT CLASS="varname" >{assign}</TT ></A > function. </P ><TABLE WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" CLASS="EXAMPLE" ><TR ><TD ><DIV CLASS="example" ><A NAME="AEN7603" ></A ><P ><B >Example 18-2. Assigning a template variable its default value</B ></P ><TABLE BORDER="0" BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" CELLPADDING="5" ><TR ><TD ><PRE CLASS="programlisting" >{* do this somewhere at the top of your template *} {assign var='title' value=$title|default:'no title'} {* if $title was empty, it now contains the value "no title" when you use it *} {$title}</PRE ></TD ></TR ></TABLE ></DIV ></TD ></TR ></TABLE ><P > See also <A HREF="language.modifier.default.html" ><TT CLASS="varname" >default</TT ></A > modifier and <A HREF="tips.html#tips.blank.var.handling" >blank variable handling</A >. </P ></DIV ><DIV CLASS="NAVFOOTER" ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"><TABLE SUMMARY="Footer navigation table" WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="tips.html" ACCESSKEY="P" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="index.html" ACCESSKEY="H" >Home</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="tips.passing.vars.html" ACCESSKEY="N" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" >Tips & Tricks</TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="tips.html" ACCESSKEY="U" >Up</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" >Passing variable title to header template</TD ></TR ></TABLE ></DIV ></BODY ></HTML >