Using Plugin Tags Within Channel Tags

Question

I have a plugin that allows you to set and store cookies using EE tags (so you don't have to enable PHP in your templates).

Unfortunately, I can't get the tag to parse the cookie value within a channel tag:

{exp:channel:entries channel="misc{exp:cookie:retrieve name="exp_lang"}"}

Any ideas?

Answer 1

It turns out that the answer was to add a "random" paramater to the plugin tag, in combination with parse="inward".

From EllisLab: "The random is sort of a hidden trick that is handy in very specific circumstances. Without it, duplicate plugins get replaced by some placeholder text so that the plugin is only run once- and then the content flips into where the placeholder text is. But the way parse order works- if you're using one of those plugins as a parameter, it ends up treating the placeholder string as the parameter value. And basically just does not work. Random causes it to not put in the placeholder text."

I also found out that you want to use single quotes inside the plugin tag.

So this works:

{exp:channel:entries parse="inward" channel="misc{exp:cookie:retrieve name='exp_lang' random}"}

Answer 2

This is a parse order issue - your Channel Entries tag is being parsed before your custom plugin tag, so you're actually passing misc{exp:cookie:retrieve name="exp_lang"} as the channel parameter.

What you need to do is turn your plugin into a tag pair, so it works like this:

{exp:cookie:retrieve name="exp_lang" parse="inward"}
    {exp:channel:entries channel="misc{exp_lang}"}
    ...
    {/exp:channel:entries}
{/exp:cookie:retrieve}

In your plugin you'd do something like this:

$vars = array('exp_lang' => 'en');
return $this->EE->TMPL->parse_variables_row($this->EE->TMPL->tagdata, $vars);

Answer 3

The value inward can be used to parse data inside an opening variable too.

Try this:

{exp:channel:entries channel="misc{exp:cookie:retrieve name='exp_lang'}" parse="inward"}
    [...]
{/exp:channel:entries}

Answer 4

As has previously been stated, you're running into a classic parse order issue. If you're not already familiar with Low's Parse Order PDF, I would recommend printing it and bookmarking it. It can be really useful until you've managed to memorize the order. http://loweblog.com/downloads/ee-parse-order.pdf

Additionally, you could create an extension to conditionally set the value (currently being set by your plugin) of a global variable. That of course would depend on your cookie name being consistent for this usage.