Install the Smarty library files which are in the /libs/ sub directory of the distribution. These are .php files that you SHOULD NOT edit. They are shared among all applications and only get changed when you upgrade to a new version of Smarty.

In the examples below the Smarty tarball has been unpacked to:

Smarty-v.e.r/
   libs/
      Smarty.class.php
      debug.tpl
      sysplugins/* (everything)
      plugins/*    (everything)

    

Smarty uses a PHP constant named SMARTY_DIR which is the full system file path to the Smarty libs/ directory. Basically, if your application can find the Smarty.class.php file, you do not need to set the SMARTY_DIR as Smarty will figure it out on its own. Therefore, if Smarty.class.php is not in your include_path, or you do not supply an absolute path to it in your application, then you must define SMARTY_DIR manually. SMARTY_DIR must include a trailing slash/.

<?php
// NOTE: Smarty has a capital 'S'
require_once('Smarty.class.php');
$smarty = new Smarty();
?>

    

Try running the above script. If you get an error saying the Smarty.class.php file could not be found, you need to do one of the following:

<?php
// *nix style (note capital 'S')
define('SMARTY_DIR', '/usr/local/lib/Smarty-v.e.r/libs/');

// windows style
define('SMARTY_DIR', 'c:/webroot/libs/Smarty-v.e.r/libs/');

// hack version example that works on both *nix and windows
// Smarty is assumend to be in 'includes/' dir under current script
define('SMARTY_DIR',str_replace("\\","/",getcwd()).'/includes/Smarty-v.e.r/libs/');

require_once(SMARTY_DIR . 'Smarty.class.php');
$smarty = new Smarty();
?>

    

<?php
// *nix style (note capital 'S')
require_once('/usr/local/lib/Smarty-v.e.r/libs/Smarty.class.php');

// windows style
require_once('c:/webroot/libs/Smarty-v.e.r/libs/Smarty.class.php');

$smarty = new Smarty();
?>

    

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
; Paths and Directories ;
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

; *nix: "/path1:/path2"
include_path = ".:/usr/share/php:/usr/local/lib/Smarty-v.e.r/libs/"

; Windows: "\path1;\path2"
include_path = ".;c:\php\includes;c:\webroot\libs\Smarty-v.e.r\libs\"

<?php
// *nix
ini_set('include_path', ini_get('include_path').PATH_SEPARATOR.'/usr/local/lib/Smarty-v.e.r/libs/');

// windows
ini_set('include_path', ini_get('include_path').PATH_SEPARATOR.'c:/webroot/lib/Smarty-v.e.r/libs/');
?>

    

Now that the library files are in place, it's time to setup the Smarty directories for your application:

For our installation example, we will be setting up the Smarty environment for a guest book application. We picked an application only for the purpose of a directory naming convention. You can use the same environment for any application, just replace guestbook/ with the name of your application.

/usr/local/lib/Smarty-v.e.r/libs/
        Smarty.class.php
        debug.tpl
        sysplugins/*
        plugins/*

/web/www.example.com/
        guestbook/
        templates/
            index.tpl
        templates_c/
        configs/
        cache/
        htdocs/
            index.php

    

Be sure that you know the location of your web server's document root as a file path. In the following examples, the document root is /web/www.example.com/guestbook/htdocs/. The Smarty directories are only accessed by the Smarty library and never accessed directly by the web browser. Therefore to avoid any security concerns, it is recommended (but not mandatory) to place these directories outside of the web server's document root.

You will need as least one file under your document root, and that is the script accessed by the web browser. We will name our script index.php, and place it in a subdirectory under the document root /htdocs/.

Smarty will need write access (windows users please ignore) to the $compile_dir and $cache_dir directories (templates_c/ and cache/), so be sure the web server user account can write to them.

chown nobody:nobody /web/www.example.com/guestbook/templates_c/
chmod 770 /web/www.example.com/guestbook/templates_c/

chown nobody:nobody /web/www.example.com/guestbook/cache/
chmod 770 /web/www.example.com/guestbook/cache/

    

We need to create the index.tpl file that Smarty will display. This needs to be located in the $template_dir.

{* Smarty *}

Hello {$name}, welcome to Smarty!

    

Now lets edit index.php. We'll create an instance of Smarty, assign() a template variable and display() the index.tpl file.

<?php

require_once(SMARTY_DIR . 'Smarty.class.php');

$smarty = new Smarty();

$smarty->setTemplateDir('/web/www.example.com/guestbook/templates/');
$smarty->setCompileDir('/web/www.example.com/guestbook/templates_c/');
$smarty->setConfigDir('/web/www.example.com/guestbook/configs/');
$smarty->setCacheDir('/web/www.example.com/guestbook/cache/');

$smarty->assign('name','Ned');

//** un-comment the following line to show the debug console
//$smarty->debugging = true;

$smarty->display('index.tpl');

?>

    

Now navigate to the index.php file with the web browser. You should see "Hello Ned, welcome to Smarty!"

You have completed the basic setup for Smarty!