PHP Syntax

• simple and easy to understand.


• derived from many languages but most of it were from C and some from Perl.


• its object-oriented syntax were patterned from Java and C++.

Source Files and PHP Tags

PHP code can be inserted directly into a text file using a special set of tags; the interpreter will then output any text outside the tags as-is, and execute the code that is between the tags.

4 Types of Tags

1. Standard Tags
   

   
   <?php
   ... code
   ?>
   

   
   


2. Short Tags
   

   
   <?
   ... code
   ?>
   <?= $variable ?>
   

   
   


3. Script Tags
   

   
   <script language="php">
   ... code
   </script>
   

   
   


4. ASP Tags
   

   
   <%
   ... code
   %>
   

   
   

Note:

3 and 4 are all considered deprecated.

Note:

To prevent spurious output from an include file, omit the closing tag at the end