Process plugins/modules tags inside another module

Question

I'm working on a module function where it will take the tagdata and send it through email. The tagdata can contain anything from simple strings to plugin or module tags.

I can't seems to find the clean solution without hacking the undocumented methods and probably unsupported and unstable and causing so many other problems.

template_file.html
{exp:my_module:send_mail}
  This is just an example with
  {exp:another_module:do_something_cool}
    some other cool stuffs
  {/exp:another_module:do_something_cool}.

  {global_variables} are working fine with the parse_global() function
{/exp:my_module:send_mail}

The code above will just send the whole $tagdata as it is without processing the {exp} tag inside. How do I process that {exp} tag before I send it through email?

Answer 1

Man, take a look at the function _parse_sub_template used on stash.

Mark Croxton, the developer of stash, cloned the tagdata and parsed it.

// clone the template object
$TMPL2 = $this->EE->TMPL;
unset($this->EE->TMPL);

// parse variables
$TMPL2->tagdata = $this->_parse_template_vars($TMPL2->tagdata);

// parse simple conditionals
$TMPL2->tagdata = $TMPL2->parse_simple_segment_conditionals($TMPL2->tagdata);
$TMPL2->tagdata = $TMPL2->simple_conditionals($TMPL2->tagdata, $this->EE->config->_global_vars);
// Remove any EE comments that might have been exposed before parsing tags
if (strpos($TMPL2->tagdata, '{!--') !== FALSE)
{
    $TMPL2->tagdata = preg_replace("/\{!--.*?--\}/s", '', $TMPL2->tagdata);
}
// parse tags, but check that there really are unparsed tags in the current shell
if (strpos($TMPL2->tagdata, LD.'exp:') !== FALSE)
{
    // parse tags
    $this->EE->TMPL = new EE_Template();
    $this->EE->TMPL->start_microtime = $TMPL2->start_microtime;
    $this->EE->TMPL->template = $TMPL2->tagdata;
    $this->EE->TMPL->tag_data   = array();
    $this->EE->TMPL->var_single = array();
    $this->EE->TMPL->var_cond   = array();
    $this->EE->TMPL->var_pair   = array();
    $this->EE->TMPL->plugins = $TMPL2->plugins;
    $this->EE->TMPL->modules = $TMPL2->modules;
    $this->EE->TMPL->module_data = $TMPL2->module_data;
    $this->EE->TMPL->parse_tags();
    $this->EE->TMPL->process_tags();
    $this->EE->TMPL->loop_count = 0;

    $TMPL2->tagdata = $this->EE->TMPL->template;
    $TMPL2->log = array_merge($TMPL2->log, $this->EE->TMPL->log);
}

$this->EE->TMPL = $TMPL2;   
unset($TMPL2);

// record if PHP is enabled for this template
$parse_php = $this->EE->TMPL->parse_php;

// parse advanced conditionals
$this->EE->TMPL->tagdata = $this->EE->TMPL->advanced_conditionals($this->EE->TMPL->tagdata);

// restore original parse_php flag for this template
$this->EE->TMPL->parse_php = $parse_php;

Please, improve this answer if you find more useful info.