print/echo statements versus html outside the code

Which is better with regards to cpu usage?

[Captaffy]

Now this is probably an anal retentive sort of question, but when the parser leaves the <?php?> brackets to output text, is there a cpu hit of any non-negligable size? What if it's going in and out of code repeatedly?

[jatar_k]

good question

In my experience I haven't noticed any detriment to jumping in and out of the parser. If memory serves i believe andreasfrierich benchmarked a while back and was quite surprised to find that it wasn't a hit at all. I believe it made only the slightest of differences.

[dvduval]

As a follow up, I hope I might ask, how do you determine whether to use print or echo?

[jatar_k]

Well I mostly use echo.

I don't think there is much of a difference really. Again andreas benchmarked it and we found very little difference.

One thing with echo was that you should use commas between values and it saves time.

echo "<p>" . $somevar . "<br>&nbsp;";

should be
echo "<p>",$somevar,"<br>&nbsp;";

then php doesn't have to construct the string before it echo, it can just spit out the bits as it goes.

[Afkamm]

So the following isn't a good way of doing it,

echo "<a href=\"www.domain.com\">$value1</a>";

and in actual fact I should be doing,

echo "<a href=\"www.domain.com\">",$value1,"</a>";

instead? Thanks.

Marc :-)

[jatar_k]

actually the first one is fine in that case. It is one string, it is only when you need to use the concatenation operator that you should use commas instead.

$somearr[$counter][0] won't be resolved between double quotes so you need to do it the other way.

echo "<a href=\"www.domain.com\">",$somearr[$counter][0],"</a>";

with a normal var you can just use the first example you had.

[RonPK]

echo "<a href=\"www.domain.com\">",$somearr[$counter][0],"</a>";

I remember reading about the 'overhead' caused by escaping quotes in strings. Maybe

echo '<a href="www.domain.com">',$somearr[$counter][0],"</a>";

would be even faster?

[Afkamm]

Or just,

?>
<a href="www.domain.com"><?=$somearr[$counter][0];?></a>
<?

?

I tend to come out of PHP when I require a moderate amount of HTML as I hate having to slash the quotes :D

Marc :-)

[daisho]

echo "<a href=\"www.domain.com\">",$somearr[$counter][0],"</a>";

Not that it directly answers the asked question but as another tidbit you could also do this:

echo "<a href=\"www.domain.com\">${somearr[$counter][0]}</a>";

The brace brackets solve the problem.

daisho.

[grahamstewart]

I hate having to slash the quotes

I usually use ' quotes to avoid this..

print '<a href="www.domain.com">.$somearr[$counter][0].'</a>';

[bonanza]

And don't forget the good ol' perlish heredoc:

echo <<< END_TEXT
Put any code in here you want<br>
Including <b>HTML</b>, "quotes", and $variables
and not having to
'worry'
about
\b\a\c\k\s\l\a\s\h\e\s.
END_TEXT;

Very nice for big blocks of html smattered with variables.

[grahamstewart]

Hmm.. true..

I usually avoid using heredoc because it confuses my text editors syntax highlighting. But thats pretty useful.

Anyone got a syntax definition file for TextPad that can cope properly with Heredoc and HTML?

[jatar_k]

i have the php4 and html syntax and it works fairly well. The killer is as soon as you use a > the syntax highlighting kicks out.

Most of my preproduction stuff ends up with?><? running around to kick the syntax highlighting back on. I forget to remove them every once in a while, raises some questions. ;)

It is always hilarious how many ways we have to do some very simple things. Makes you wonder sometimes if best practice exists or it is just best practice for you.