getting-started.md

Getting Started

SmartString makes template output XSS-safe by default: values HTML-encode themselves whenever they're printed. This page touches on everything you need to start working with the library, from installation to debugging.

Contents:

• Installation
• Your First SmartString
• The Mental Model
• Why Auto-Encoding Matters
• Chaining Methods
• Fallbacks for Missing Values
• Working with SmartArray and ZenDB
• Converting to Plain PHP Types
• Configuring Defaults
• Debugging
• What SmartString Guarantees
• What SmartString Does Not Do

Installation

Using CMS Builder or ZenDB? SmartString is already installed, and every database value you touch is already a SmartString; skip ahead to Your First SmartString to see how they behave.

composer require itools/smartstring

Requirements: PHP 8.1+ and ext-mbstring. The SmartArray companion library (arrays as collections of SmartStrings) installs separately: composer require itools/smartarray.

Your First SmartString

Create a SmartString with SmartString::new(), then echo it. The output is HTML-encoded automatically; you never call htmlspecialchars() yourself:

use Itools\SmartString\SmartString;

$name = SmartString::new("Jean O'Brien");

echo "Hello, $name!";  // Hello, Jean O&​apos;Brien! (quote encoded automatically)

The single quote in "O'Brien" comes out as '. That happens in every string context: echo, print, concatenation, (string) casts, and double-quoted interpolation.

The Mental Model

A SmartString is an object, not a string. It stores your original value untouched, and whenever PHP needs it as a string, the object converts itself to its HTML-encoded value. That gives you two views of every value:

$str = SmartString::new("It's easy!<hr>");

echo $str;           // It&​apos;s easy!&​lt;hr&​gt; (encoded, safe for HTML)
echo $str->value();  // It's easy!<hr> (the original value)

The raw value is for logic (math, comparisons, MySQL); the encoded output is for HTML. This flips the old habit: instead of remembering to encode every output, encoding happens on its own, and the one thing left to remember is value() when your code needs the original. Forgetting it produces a visible ' in your output rather than a silent security hole.

$price = SmartString::new(1234567.89);

if ($price->value() > 1000) {      // raw value for logic
    echo $price->numberFormat(2);  // encoded output for HTML: 1,234,567.89
}

The value() method is the escape hatch: it returns the original value in its original type. An int goes in, an int comes back; same for float, bool, and null.

Why Auto-Encoding Matters

Every value you output in HTML needs htmlspecialchars(). Miss one, and an attacker can run their own script in your page:

// one forgotten htmlspecialchars() on a search page:
echo "Results for $_REQUEST[q]";
// ?q=<script src=//evil.example/steal.js></script>  now runs in every visitor's browser

Across hundreds of templates and thousands of echo statements, someone eventually forgets one.

SmartString inverts the default behavior: output is encoded when you do nothing, and unencoded output has to be asked for explicitly (see Encoding and HTML for the explicit ways to ask).

Chaining Methods

Transformation methods return a new SmartString, so calls chain left to right and the result is still safe to echo:

$article = SmartString::new("  <p>Hello <b>World</b></p> and more text here that keeps going  ");

echo $article->textOnly()->maxChars(20);  // Hello World and more...

Inside double-quoted strings, method calls need curly braces. This is a PHP language requirement, not a SmartString rule:

$date  = SmartString::new("2026-09-10 14:30:00");
$price = SmartString::new(1234567.89);

echo "Posted {$date->dateFormat('M jS, Y')}";  // Posted Sep 10th, 2026
echo "Total: {$price->numberFormat(2)}";       // Total: 1,234,567.89

Fallbacks for Missing Values

SmartString calls a value missing when it is null or an empty string "", and nothing else. Use or() to show a default when a value is missing:

$name = SmartString::new(null);
echo "Hello, {$name->or('Guest')}!";  // Hello, Guest!

Zero comes through or() unchanged because zero is not missing; a price of zero (what your template shows as $0.00) is real data, not a missing value:

$price = SmartString::new(0);
echo $price->or("N/A");  // 0

For values that must exist, like a record ID from the URL, or404() stops the page with a 404 instead of substituting a default:

$articleNum = (int)($_GET['num'] ?? 0);

$article = DB::selectOne('articles', ['num' => $articleNum]);
$article->num->or404("Article not found");

// past this line, $article is a real record
echo "<h1>$article->title</h1>";

A missing record comes back as an empty row, not null, so $article->num is safe to call; the field simply reads as missing, which is what triggers the guard.

The full family (or(), ifNull(), ifZero(), or404(), orDie(), orThrow(), orRedirect(), and the true/false checks) is covered in Conditionals and Error Checking.

Working with SmartArray and ZenDB

In practice, you rarely create SmartStrings one at a time. Database rows and request data arrive as arrays, and SmartArray's SmartArrayHtml class wraps a whole array so every value comes back as a SmartString (separate install: composer require itools/smartarray):

use Itools\SmartArray\SmartArrayHtml;

$user = SmartArrayHtml::new([
    'name'      => "Jean O'Brien",
    'city'      => 'Vancouver',
    'lastLogin' => '2026-09-10 14:30:00',
]);

echo "Hello, $user->name from $user->city!";
// Hello, Jean O&​apos;Brien from Vancouver!

echo "Last login: {$user->lastLogin->dateFormat('F j, Y')}";
// Last login: September 10, 2026

$request = SmartArrayHtml::new($_REQUEST);   // request values work the same way

Field access interpolates without curly braces or quotes; the plain-array version of that first echo would be "Hello, {$user['name']} from {$user['city']}!".

With ZenDB this happens automatically: every query returns SmartArrays of SmartStrings, so you may never call SmartString::new() at all:

use Itools\ZenDB\DB;

$users = DB::select('users', ['status' => 'Active']);
foreach ($users as $user) {
    echo "$user->name from $user->city<br>\n";  // every value auto-encodes
}

Converting to Plain PHP Types

The type-conversion methods end the chain and return a plain PHP value.

$value = SmartString::new("123.45");

$value->int();     // 123
$value->float();   // 123.45
$value->bool();    // true
$value->string();  // "123.45" (the original string, NOT HTML-encoded)
$value->value();   // "123.45" (original value in its original type)

Note that string() returns the raw string, not the encoded one; it is value() with a guaranteed string type. Null coerces the way PHP casts do: int() returns 0, float() returns 0.0, bool() returns false, and string() returns "". Use value() when you need to know a value was actually null.

For code that receives a mix of SmartStrings and plain values, SmartString::getRawValue() unwraps Smart* objects and passes plain values and arrays through unchanged (other objects throw InvalidArgumentException):

SmartString::getRawValue(SmartString::new("hello"));  // "hello"
SmartString::getRawValue(42);                         // 42 (unchanged)
SmartString::getRawValue(null);                       // null (unchanged)

Configuring Defaults

Three static properties control default formatting. Set them once at the top of your script or in an init file and they apply everywhere:

SmartString::$numberFormatDecimal   = '.';      // numberFormat() decimal separator
SmartString::$numberFormatThousands = ',';      // numberFormat() thousands separator
SmartString::$dateFormat            = 'Y-m-d';  // dateFormat() default format

The values above are the defaults. European locales typically swap the number separators; see Text and Formatting for how each setting is used.

Debugging

print_r() can be used on any SmartString to show the stored value:

$name = SmartString::new("Jean O'Brien");
print_r($name);

// Itools\SmartString\SmartString Object
// (
//     [value] => Jean O'Brien
// )

The Method Reference lists every method with examples.

What SmartString Guarantees

1. Every string context produces HTML-encoded output. All of echo, print, interpolation, concatenation, and (string) casts encode.
2. value() returns your original value, in its original type. An int goes in and an int comes back; same for float, bool, and null.
3. Methods return new objects. Chaining never modifies the original SmartString.
4. Chains never throw on bad data. Missing values pass through transformations, and failed operations (an invalid date, math on a non-numeric value) return null, so one or() at the end covers anything that went wrong anywhere in the chain. Developer mistakes are the opposite: an invalid regex or a call to an undefined method throws immediately, with a message that says what to fix.

What SmartString Does Not Do

1. It does not sanitize input. It encodes output. Validate data before storage as you normally would.
2. It does not validate data. Use filter_var(), type declarations, or your own checks.
3. It does not accept objects or resources. Values are string, int, float, bool, or null; arrays belong in SmartArray.
4. It auto-encodes for HTML only. URL and JSON contexts need their explicit methods, urlEncode() and jsonEncode(); see Encoding and HTML.

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