can't figure out why recursive replace is not working

[mctrivia]

    if ($template->load($maintemplatefile,$values)) {
       //load every php file in the plugin folder

    //Handle invalid page Requests
    } else {
      echo '404 File Not Found';
      //exit;
    }

    //print page code
    echo $template->html();
  }

 

I call the above code it prints out the template file but it does not recursively replace the <TEMPLATE_LOADTEMPLATE_$1> that is in the file even though it properly parses both the $tag and $value variables going to the $this->replace($tag,$value); line.  Any idea why this does not work?

 

<?php

  class Template {
    var $code='';

    function load($file,$values) {
      if (file_exists($file)) {
        //get template directory
        $dir=substr($file,0,strrpos($file,'/')) . '/';
       

        //get template
        $this->code=file_get_contents($file);

        //check if any recurseve templates to add
        $tags=$this->tags();

        //process all internal template tags
        $newValues=array_slice($values,1);
        foreach ($tags as $tag) {

          //handle inserting new template file
          if (substr($tag,0,13)=='LOADTEMPLATE_') {
            $file=substr($tag,13);
            if ($file[0]=='$') {
              $file=$values[(substr($file,1)-1)];
            }
            $temp=new Template;
            $filename=$dir . $file . '.xhtml';
            if ($temp->load($filename,$newValues)) {
              $value=$temp->html();
            } else {
              $value='File Not Found';
            }
            $this->replace($tag,$value);
          }
        }


        return true;
      } else {
        return false;
      }
    }

    function tags() {
      preg_match_all('/<TEMPLATE_[^<]+?>/', $this->code, $tags);
      $tags=$tags[0];
      foreach ($tags as $key=>$value) {
        $tags[$key]=substr($value,10,-1);
      }
      return array_unique($tags);
    }

    function replace($tag,$value) {
      $this->code = ereg_replace('<TEMPLATE_' . $tag . '>',$value . '',$this->code);
    }

    function replaceSection($tag,$value) {
      $replace='~<TEMPLATE_' . $tag . '>[\s\S]*?</TEMPLATE_' . $tag . '>~';
      $this->code = preg_replace($replace,$value . '',$this->code);
    }

    function compress() {
      $this->code = ereg_replace("\n",'',$this->code);
      $this->code = ereg_replace("  ",' ',$this->code);
      $this->code = ereg_replace("\r",'',$this->code);
    }

    function html() {
      //remove <TEMPLATE_*> & </TEMPLATE_*> tags then return html.
      return preg_replace('/(<\/?)TEMPLATE_[^<]+?>/','',$this->code);
    }
  }

?>

 

 

All code listed is available for use under GNU public license.

[mctrivia]

found the line that is not working.

 

$this->code = ereg_replace('<TEMPLATE_' . $tag . '>',$value . '',$this->code);

 

echo before and after show the values are there to be replaced but aren't getting replaced.