A function to render a php file with data. Allows templating and then sending an array of data into the view.
function renderPhpFile($filename, $vars = null) {
if (is_array($vars) && !empty($vars)) {
extract($vars);
}
ob_start();
include $filename;
return ob_get_clean();
}
// usage
echo renderPhpFile('views/templates/index.php', $data_for_view);