HTML indenting inside PHP

Question

I've this code:

<? if(is_home() || is_archive()): ?>
<ul>
  <li><a href="<?= site_url('/category/one') ?>">One</a></li>
  <li><a href="<?= site_url('/category/two') ?>">Two</a></li>
  <li><a href="<?= site_url('/category/three') ?>">Three</a></li>
</ul>
<? endif ?>

Which produces this output:

  <ul>
  <li><a href="http://domain/...">One</a></li>
  <li><a href="http://domain/...">Two</a></li>
  <li><a href="http://domain/...">Three</a></li>
</ul>

Notice that <ul> is indented. If I use the following it outputs as expected:

<? if(is_home() || is_archive()): ?><ul>
...

I know this is trivial but I'd like to know if there's a way to do this so it still looks nice in both PHP and HMTL; I like clean output.

PHP eats up a single newline after the closing token ?>. Why there are spaces before, no idea. — mario
– mario, Commented Feb 13, 2013 at 5:36
So I guess the only way is to put the opening tag on the same line or hit return twice, or am I missing something? — elclanrs
– elclanrs, Commented Feb 13, 2013 at 5:37
I feel like most things you can do to tidy up the output would mess up the actual code, which is far more important. — Marty
– Marty, Commented Feb 13, 2013 at 5:38
Personally I've given up on ironing t-shirts or caring about HTML indentation. — mario
– mario, Commented Feb 13, 2013 at 5:39
This question was more of a "why" and "is there a fix". The first comment seems to address this perfectly, I wasn't aware of that, I'll accept if posted as question @mario. I can figure out the alternatives now. — elclanrs
– elclanrs, Commented Feb 13, 2013 at 5:44

mario · Accepted Answer · 2013-02-13 05:52:24Z

4

Okay. PHP eats up a single newline (\n or \r\n) after the closing token ?>.
As mentioned in http://php.net/manual/en/language.basic-syntax.instruction-separation.php

[...] The closing tag for the block will include the immediately trailing newline if one is present.

One workaround is also mentioned in the comments there. If you were to add a space after the ?>, meaning a sequence of ? > SPACE \n, the newline would retain its purpose. -- But then you'd depend on another invisible character to get the desired effect.

answered Feb 13, 2013 at 5:52

mario

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Comments

Tucker · Accepted Answer · 2013-02-13 05:44:32Z

2

firstly, why do you care if your html is formatted awkwardly? I understand perhaps for readability purposes but there are html formatting tools available: e.g. http://www.freeformatter.com/html-formatter.html

If you're concerned about you html code being valid, try using an appropriate IDE or an html validator: e.g. http://validator.w3.org/

lastly, the answer to your question: change the start of your code to this:

<?php if(is_home() || is_archive()){ echo "\n" ?><ul>
  <li><a href="<
...
<?php }?>

edited Feb 13, 2013 at 5:44

answered Feb 13, 2013 at 5:39

Tucker

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2 Comments

elclanrs Over a year ago

+1 for a valid solution but it doesn't help that much. I mean the PHP now looks uglier. I'll just leave the HTML as it is. It really doesn't matter, it was a question out of curiosity basically.

Tucker Over a year ago

...ok. you can have your cake, but you can't eat it too ;-)

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