How can PHP be inserted into the Products Description area?

Recently, I tried adding a few lines of PHP to the product description.

Instead of executing the code, the whole string of PHP commands was outputted to the screen, as though it were just plain text.

I included the customary

at the beginning, and end, of the PHP code I wished to include.

Is what I was trying to do at all possible? And if not, would someone who knows the answer kindly explain?

Thank you,
Donn

Product description area only parses html code as you have noticed

kobra:

Product description area only parses html code as you have noticed

Thanks for the answer....

:( I was hoping that this wasn't the case...........

In simple terms, why can't PHP be executed from the products description HTML?

Is there any way to change this, and permit the PHP to be parsed? Is this a server-side control?

Would Java work any differently?

In simple terms, why can't PHP be executed cfrom the description?
I only know that this is how it functions due to how it is coded.
Is there any way to hange this, and permit the PHP to be parsed?
I would suspect not with out a huge amount of re-coding

Maybe a dev will happen by with a better explanation or possible solution

You can, it will be probably 1 single line of code change, you will have to eval the description instead of echoing it, and you will have to do something like this

eval("?>$products_description<?php");

Remember, anyone has access to your admin now can run whatever php code he wants using the description of the product, either it's worth it or not is up to you.

Donn, if what you're looking to do is display certain messages over and over again, you can use my Boilerplate Tips:

http://www.thatsoftwareguy.com/zencart_php_in_description.html

http://www.thatsoftwareguy.com/zencart_boilerplate_files.html

HTH,
Scott

yellow1912:

You can, it will be probably 1 single line of code change, you will have to eval the description instead of echoing it, and you will have to do something like this

eval("?>$products_description<?php");

Remember, anyone has access to your admin now can run whatever php code he wants using the description of the product, either it's worth it or not is up to you.

Has someone tried this?

I have tried replacing

echo stripslashes($products_description);

by

eval("?>$products_description<?php");

in /includes/templates/cherry_zen/templates/tpl_product_info_display.php

but it just deletes the whole product description. I imagine that I would have to do something so the code in my product description do not interfere with ZenCart's code. Somehting like stripslashes? However my knowledge of php is null.

The real question is why do you think you need php in the product description?

Because part of my product description is almost always the same. Therefore I would like to add an include

Then use swguy's boilerplate tips in post 6.

gjh42:

Then use swguy's boilerplate tips in post 6.
If I understand it correctly, it replaces the whole description. However, I still need to customize the top of the description for each product.

You don't understand it correctly.

The idea behind it is to add a common block of text at the end of the description.