(Drupal 6) $theme_key returning no value - drupal

Question

I am trying to set up a Drupal 6 node to load blocks dynamically depending on the selected theme. I figured that I could use $theme_key to determine the name of the theme, and work from there. The weird thing is that if I have several checks on a page, the first one will return an empty value for $theme_key, but subsequent checks will work as expected.
For instance:
<?php
print "Theme: ". $theme_key;
if($theme_key =="foo"){
$viewName = 'theView';
$display_id = 'block_1';
print views_embed_view($viewName, $display_id);
}
else {
$viewName = 'theOtherView';
$display_id = 'block_1';
print views_embed_view($viewName, $display_id);
}
?>
If I have the above in the node multiple times with theme "foo" active (for testing purposes) - the first time will return a blank value for $theme_key, and display theOtherView, but the second time it will show Theme: foo and will display theView. All subsequent calls to $theme_key will be correct as well.
Any calls to $theme_key prior to the first block will return blank values.
I am declaring
<?php global $theme_key; ?>
at the beginning of the node content. (Before all of the conditional blocks...)
What am I doing wrong? Is there a better way to check the current theme?

Answer 1

Just looking at the init_theme() function the globals $theme and $theme_key contain exactly the same values so you could try using $theme (as yvan suggested), but as they contain the same data and are both globals set in the same function I'm not sure it would make any difference.
Is this code in a template file? If so you could be suffering from the age old Drupal theming problem whereby some variables aren't available when the template is built. You could try adding a hook_preprocess_node() function in a module/theme to set up the variable and pass it to your template file. Something like this:
function MYMODULE_preprocess_node(&$vars) {
global $theme_key;
$vars['current_theme_key'] = $theme_key;
}
And then in your template file you'll have access to the variable $current_theme_key, which should then have the right variable in it.
Hope that helps, I've come across these sort of problems with Drupal before and they're a nightmare to debug.
Edit to add more helpful function:
function MYMODULE_preprocess_node(&$vars) {
$node = $vars['node'];
if ($node->type == 'my_type') {
global $theme_key;
$view_name = $theme_key == 'foo' ? 'theView' : 'theOtherView';
$display_id = 'block_1';
$vars['my_custom_view'] = views_embed_view($view_name, $display_id);
}
}
Then in your node.tpl.php or node-type.tpl.php file you can use code like this:
if (isset($my_custom_view)):
echo $my_custom_view;
endif;
By constructing the variables in a preprocess function you shouldn't have any problems with the global $theme_key not being available any more.
Bear in mind you could also implement this in your theme (in the template.php file) by changing the function name to MYTHEME_preprocess_node.
Make sure you clear your Drupal cache once you've implemented the function (wherever you decide to put it) so the system will pick up the changes.
Hope that helps!