What are the potential pitfalls of using global constants in PHP for template variables, and how can they impact the flexibility and scalability of an application?

Using global constants for template variables in PHP can lead to inflexibility and scalability issues as it tightly couples the template variables to specific values. This can make it difficult to update or modify these values without directly editing the constants, which can be cumbersome and error-prone. To improve flexibility and scalability, it's better to use a configuration file or a template engine that allows for dynamic variable assignment. 

// Define template variables in a configuration file
$config = [
    'title' => 'My Website',
    'logo' => 'logo.png',
    'footer_text' => '© 2021 My Company'
];

// Pass the configuration data to the template
$template->render('index', $config);

Keywords

global constants template variables flexibility scalability application architecture

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