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The Magento Email Template If Statements aren't evaluating to true when I expect them to. Can someone tell me what's wrong? Take a look at the following code:

{{var customer.group_id}}
{{if customer.group_id}}Print true{{else}}Print false{{/if}}
{{if customer.group_id==4}}Print true{{else}}Print false{{/if}}
{{if customer.group_id=4}}Print true{{else}}Print false{{/if}}
{{if customer.group_id eq 4}}Print true{{else}}Print false{{/if}}

The output is

Print True
Print False
Print False
Print False

I tried putting quotes around the 4, but same result. How do I evaluate equalities with magento email template if statements?

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4 Answers 4

up vote 8 down vote accepted

Digging through the code, it looks like the template logic is implemented by Varien_Filter_Template (under lib\Varien not app\code) in the filter function which issues a callback to the ifDirective function if the pattern matches the regex. The ifDirective in turn uses the _getVariable function to evaluate your if condition. _getVariable then tokenizes the condition in Varien_Filter_Template_Tokenizer_Variable into either a property or a method.

if($this->isWhiteSpace()) {
            // Ignore white spaces
        } else if($this->char()!='.' && $this->char()!='(') {
            // Property or method name
            $parameterName .= $this->char();
        } else if($this->char()=='(') {
            // Method declaration
            $methodArgs = $this->getMethodArgs();
            $actions[] = array('type'=>'method',
            $parameterName = '';
        } else if($parameterName!='') {
            // Property or variable declaration
            if($variableSet) {
                $actions[] = array('type'=>'property',
            } else {
                $variableSet = true;
                $actions[] = array('type'=>'variable',
            $parameterName = '';

When the if condition is detected to be a method, it will execute that method, otherwise it simply returns the string value of the variable.

All of which means (I think!) that if you want to evaluate an expression inside the if statement, you need to add a new customer attribute (there are extensions available for this) that the template can evaluate. So if you define a boolean "isMemberOfGroupNameX" attribute, then the template should work.

I imagine this is not the answer that you're looking for, but I'm fairly sure that's the case.


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Correct me if I'm wrong, but from what you say, he could also create a method of some sort (maybe a helper method?) that could check this as well, right? –  Joseph Mastey Jan 26 '11 at 0:26
You might also be able to build the logic outside the template to populate a certain customer variable at runtime. –  Chris Jan 26 '11 at 1:37
@Joseph - yes, you could create a method, but I think it would need to be on the Customer object so that you could use {{if customer.isGroupMember()}} which requires you to extend the Customer model. Not something that I'd necessarily recommend for this requirement, but still a valid option –  Jonathan Day Jan 26 '11 at 4:15

I solved this problem by using the 'block' technique.

What you do is you pass the order to a block and then do your logic inside that block.

Although my solution is for a different problem the approach should work here.

What I wanted was to have a pay by cheque option and some extra text in the confirmation email reminding them to pay. I added this into the new order template:

{{block type='core/template' area='frontend' template='paymentstatus/orderemail.phtml' order=$order}}<br />

Then I created a file app/design/frontend/default/default/template/paymentstatus/orderemail.phtml

This has the 'if' logic, in my case I wanted to see if the order status was that for a cheque and only then remind the customer that their order needed cleared funds.

<?php if($this->getData('order')->getStatus()=='cheque') {
echo "<p>Please note that we will require your cheque to clear before we can despatch your order.</p>"; }?>
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where is {{block type='core/template' area='frontend' template='paymentstatus/orderemail.phtml' order=$order}}<br /> this code you placed –  Kichu Mar 1 '13 at 3:58
Thank you! Added instruction on Russian language, magefast.com/letter-template-magento-fantastico –  Magefast Sep 5 '13 at 19:24
I used the following code to retrieve the payment type: $payment_type = $this->getData('order')->getPayment()->getMethodInstance()->getCode(); –  deanpodgornik Jan 17 at 8:54
Hi deanpodgornik, where did you add that code? To email template or to the orderemail.phtml –  Kaspar Lemmo Palgi-Unt Mar 10 at 18:01
added to orderemail.phtml and all workd perfectly. thanks –  Kaspar Lemmo Palgi-Unt Mar 10 at 21:47

I was able to more or less accomplish this right in the template using {{depend}} template tags.

{{depend somevar}}
Print this if somevar evaluates to true

You will have to conjure up this variable in app/code/local/Mage/Sales/Model/Order.php in the methods like sendNewOrderEmail() and so forth.

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Within normal Magento blocks/classes you would use $customer->getGroupId() to access the group id value. The CMS/Email template equivalent is customer.getGroupId(), not customer.group_id like you wrote.

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