RE: [MLUG] to echo or print in PHP

["Russell Horn" <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

> 
> Just a quick question, is there any certain case where you should use
> "echo" over "print" in PHP?
> Example
> print ("<b>Hello World</b\n");
> 
> 
> echo "<b>Hello world</b>";
> 


>From http://www.faqts.com/knowledge_base/view.phtml/aid/1/fid/40

Which is linked to from the PHP manual...

What is the difference between echo and print?
Which is faster, echo or print?
Jun 8th, 1999 09:00

Nathan Wallace
Rasmus Lerdorf


There is a difference between the two, but speed-wise it 
should be irrelevant which one you use.  print() behaves 
like a function in that you can do:

  $ret = print "Hello World";

And $ret will be 1

That means that print can be used as part of a more complex 
expression where echo cannot.  print is also part of the 
precedence table which it needs to be if it is to be used 
within a complex expression.  It is just about at the bottom 
of the precendence list though.  Only "," AND, OR and XOR 
are lower.

echo is marginally faster since it doesn't set a return 
value if you really want to get down to the nitty gritty.

If the grammar is:

 echo expression [, expression[, expression] ... ]

Then

 echo ( expression, expression ) 

is not valid.  ( expression ) reduces to just an expression 
so this would be valid:

 echo ("howdy"),("partner");

but you would simply write this as:

 echo "howdy","partner"; 

if you wanted to use two expression.  Putting the brackets 
in there serves no purpose since there is no operator 
precendence issue with a single expression like that.

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