What is difference between echo print and printf in php?

Is there a better way to output data to html page with PHP?

If I like to make a div with some var in php, I will write something like that

print ['
'.$var.'
'];

or

echo "'
'.$var.'
'";

What is the proper way to do that?

Or a better way, fill a $tempvar and print it once? like that:

$tempvar = '
'.$var.'
'
print [$tempvar];

In fact, in real life, the var will be fill with much more!

syrkull

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asked Oct 1, 2009 at 15:54

menardmammenardmam

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2

There are 2 differences between echo and print in PHP:

• print returns a value. It always returns 1.

• echo can take a comma delimited list of arguments to output.

Always returning 1 doesn't seem particularly useful. And a comma delimited list of arguments can be simulated with multiple calls or string concatenation. So the choice between echo and print pretty much comes down to style. Most PHP code that I've seen uses echo.

printf[] is a direct analog of c's printf[]. If you're comfortable in the c idiom, you might use printf[]. A lot of people in the younger generation though, find printf[]'s special character syntax to be less readable than the equivalent echo code.

There are probably differences in performance between echo, print and printf, but I wouldn't get too hung up on them since in a database driven web application [PHP's typical domain], printing strings to the client is almost certainly not your bottleneck. The bottom line is that any of the 3 will get the job done and one is not better than another. It's just a matter of style.

answered Oct 1, 2009 at 15:57

2

you can even write

$var = "hello";

echo "Some Text $var some other text";
// output:
// Some Text hello some other text

or

print["Some Text $var some other text"];
// output:
// Some Text hello some other text

doesn't make big difference. This works with double-quotes only. With single quotes it doesn't. example:

$var = "hello";

echo 'Some Text $var some other text'; // Note the single quotes!
// output:
// Some Text $var some other text

or

print['Some Text $var some other text']; // Note the single quotes!
// output:
// Some Text $var some other text

answered Oct 1, 2009 at 16:03

AtmocreationsAtmocreations

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Just try this you gonna love the well formated amount of infos :

OK, I explain : set a "code" html format and var_dump show the value, the type, the params ... of the variable.

answered Oct 1, 2009 at 16:24

JF SimonJF Simon

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1

//us2.php.net/echo

Or if you don't have short tags on, you might need to

if you have the short_open_tag option enabled you can do

But some find that messy.

answered Oct 1, 2009 at 15:58

Will ShaverWill Shaver

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2

You can also use the following syntax:

    echo