httpwebwitch - 5:16 pm on Nov 17, 2011 (gmt 0)

incrediBill, I recommend Smarty too.

The syntax is easy to learn, and it does exactly what you want in a tried & tested & optimized way. templates are pre-compiled, substitutions are easy to manage... it does everything right.

It is essentially "the" templating engine for PHP.

There are substitution strategies you can use that employ ob_start() and ob_get_contents() and all the other ob_ functions, rolling your own templating using preg_match(), eval() etc... it's all just reinventing the wheel.