PHP Syntax

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# PHP Syntax

PHP code is executed on the server, and the plain HTML result is sent to the browser.

## Basic PHP Syntax

A PHP scripting block always starts with <?php and ends with ?>. A PHP scripting block can be placed anywhere in the document.

On servers with shorthand support enabled you can start a scripting block with <? and end with ?>.

For maximum compatibility, we recommend that you use the standard form (<?php) rather than the shorthand form.

    <?php

    ?>

A PHP file normally contains HTML tags, just like an HTML file, and some PHP scripting code.

Below, we have an example of a simple PHP script which sends the text "Hello World" to the browser:

    <html>
    <body>

    <?php
    echo "Hello World";
    ?>

    </body>
    </html>

Each code line in PHP must end with a semicolon. The semicolon is a separator and is used to distinguish one set of instructions from another.

There are two basic statements to output text with PHP: echo and print. In the example above we have used the echo statement to output the text "Hello World".

Note: The file must have the .php extension. If the file has a .html extension, the PHP code will not be executed.

## Comments in PHP

In PHP, we use // to make a single-line comment or /* and */ to make a large comment block.

    <html>
    <body>

    <?php

    //This is a comment

    /*
    This is
    a comment
    block
    */

    ?>

    </body>
    </html>

From http://www.w3schools.com (Copyright Refsnes Data)