I found an old post about control structures in templates that states that else_if should work but when I try to use it in my templates it just gets printed as raw text.

I tried doing something like this

<% if Level(2) %>
  $Parent.Title
  <% else_if Level(3) %>
  $Title
  <% else %>
  $Title
  <% end_if %>

I'm having the same problem, does else_if work or not? What's the deal with it just coming out as plain text? My code is:

<% if InSection(home) %>
 home
<% else_if InSection(about) %>
 about
<% else %>
 subpage
<% end_if %>

Did this ever get answered? I have the same problem, see here: http://www.silverstripe.org/all-other-modules/show/293853?showPost=293853

jf/

I'd raise this as a bug as I've seen it too!

But it is soooo simple to fix that I hadn't bothered...

<% if InSection(home) %> 
	home 
<% else %>
	<% if InSection(about) %> 
		about 
	<% else %> 
		subpage 
	<% end_if %>
<% end_if %>

@Swaiba

That's all well and good if you only have 3 cases. Unfortunately I have about 8 which leads to a very messy set of nested conditionals which goes something like this:

<% if InSection(home) %>
home
<% else %>
<% if InSection(about) %>
about
<% else %>
<% if yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy %>
subpage
<% else %>
<% if xxxxxxxxxxxxxx %>
something else
<% else %>
<% if zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz %>
something else
<% else %>
something else
<% end_if %>
<% end_if %>
<% end_if %>
<% end_if %>
<% end_if %>

And that's the simplified version(!)

So, does anyone know, has "else_if" actually been removed???

jf/

Oh Absolutely Junglefish!

As I said "I have noticed else_if not working as well" and if you want to get an official response then it is always easier to go to http://open.silverstripe.org/ and raise a ticket!

IMHO if you have such a large complex if / else if I'd think it was too complex and try and achieve it slightly differently using different page types, includes or involving the controller a little more. Or you could do the following...

<% if InSection(home) %> 
home 
<% end_if %>
<% if InSection(about) %> 
   about 
<% end_if %>
<% if yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy %> 
   subpage 
<% end_if %>
etc..

or without the formating if you have a small amount of code inside each if (and if not, perhaps including templates might help)...

<% if InSection(home) %>home<% end_if %>
<% if InSection(about) %>about<% end_if %>
<% if yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy %>subpage<% end_if %>
etc..

And yes that also has some flaws... Personally I'd recommend trying to do this work without such a large/complex logic in the template. There are many other ways to do things in silverstripe, as yet another suggestion you could extend page to add to the $db a field MyCustomText and then for each of these page types you can edit the text in the cms and then you only need $MyCustomText in the template.

Just to make it clear I agree that else_if is buggy, but I am also suggesting that there are other, perhaps better ways, to get the same result.

<% else_if %> has not been removed, it just doesn't accept as much options as <% if %> does. The valid ways of using <% else_if %> are:

• <% else_if Val %>
  
• <% else_if Val1 || Val2 %>
  
• <% else_if Val1 && Val2 %>
  
• <% else_if Val1 == Val2 %>
  
• <% else_if Val1 != Val2 %>
  
• <% else_if Obj.Val %>
  
• <% else_if Obj.Meth.Val %>