In the last two days, ive run across code that has php echo'd variables displayed like this
<?=$selected?>
What exactly is going on and why? What is this called?
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1 Answer
That's called a Short Tag. It's a shortcut to <?php echo $selected;?>. It is widely adopted, but there's a lot of literature out there that does not recommend its use as it leads to less portable code (many PHP installations do not have short tags enabled). I happen to agree, just take a look at this user's woes. Also, see:
3 Comments
mrpatg
Interesting. Thanks for the quick response!
mauris
but remember, short tags are deprecated in PHP 6. You can enable short tags by using ini_set()
reko_t
You can't enable it with ini_set(), because the file is parsed before any ini_set() are executed, and at the time they are executed, the PHP document has been parsed already. If you want to use <?= and still have portable application, you can use a stream wrapper that converts short tags to long tags. This is what Zend Framework does for example (eg. include 'zend.view://file.php'), but be aware that it degrades performance.