Replace a variable within a plugin tag pair?

Question

So if I have a plugin, with a tag like this:

{exp:reggy mask="yes"}
    {head-type}
{/exp:reggy}

And I want to replace {head-type} with "horse mask" in the plugin code, how do I do that? EE docs account for replacing the whole text or modifying it, but don't specifically address variable replacement.

Answer 1

$variables[] = array('variable_name' => 'Your value');
$variables[] = array('variable_name' => 'Different Value');
$variables[] = array('variable_name' => 'Another one');
$this->return_data = $this->EE->TMPL->parse_variables($this->EE->TMPL->tagdata, $variables);

It is important to not manually specify indexes for the $variables array. The above example would loop through your tag pair three times and replace the output. Of course, normally you wouldn't be manually creating each individual iteration and it would come from query results or some other set of data.

For more information on variable parsing, go here.

Answer 2

You want to use the EE->TMPL->parse_variables function. Here's an example block

public function reggy() {
   $variables = array();

   $tagdata = $this->EE->TMPL->tagdata;

   $variables[] = array('head_type' => 'horse mask');

   return $this->EE->TMPL->parse_variables($tagdata, $variables);
}

You can define other replacement variables by simply adding to the $variables array, the key will be the tag name.