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# touchBlock()

touchBlock() -- Preserves the block even if empty blocks should be removed.

## Synopsis

    require_once 'HTML/Template/Sigma.php';

``mixed HTML_Template_Sigma::touchBlock` (string $block)`

## Description

Sometimes you have blocks that should be preserved although they are empty (no placeholder replaced). Think of a shopping basket. If it's empty you have to show a message to the user. If it's filled you have to show the contents of the shopping basket. Now where to place the message that the basket is empty? It's not a good idea to place it in you application as customers tend to like unecessary minor text changes. Having another template file for an empty basket means that one fine day the filled and empty basket templates will have different layouts.

So blocks that do not contain any placeholders but only messages like "Your shopping basked is empty" are intoduced. Now if there is no replacement done in such a block the block will be recognized as "empty" and by default ($removeEmptyBlocks = true) be stripped off. To avoid this you can call touchBlock()

## Parameter

string `$block`

  block name

## Return value

return SIGMA_OK on success, error object on failure

## See

see `HTML_Template_Sigma::$removeEmptyBlocks`

## Throws

Table 41-1. Possible PEAR_Error values

Error code | Error message | Reason | Solution
--- | --- | --- | ---
`SIGMA_BLOCK_NOT_FOUND` | Cannot find block '`$block`' | There is no block `$block` in the template | Check the block name spelling, check whether you added all the necessary blocks to the template

## Note

This function can not be called statically.

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