explanation of a line of code

[humpingdan]

}
while ( $row = mysql_fetch_array($result) ) {
$linkid = $row['id'];
$linktitle = $row['title'];
$linkurl = $row['link'];

echo('<p>'.'<a href="' . $linkurl . '">' . $linktitle . '</a>'.'</p>');

}

just the one line i dont quite get, i know what it does but why its strutured that way i dont know?

echo('<p>' (i understand)

. (i dont understand)

'<a href="' (i understand)

. $linkurl . ' (i dont understand)

in short i dont really understand the need for the "."'s
why do i have to put a "." in between statements,
im sure its plainly obvious!

Thanks

[HelenDev]

. is where you concatenate strings and variables in php

like + does in javascript

'<p>my html stuff</p>'.$myvariable.'<b>some more html</b>

[Timotheos]

in short i dont really understand the need for the "."'s
why do i have to put a "." in between statements

This is a very strange structure and you don't need to do it. See the manual on string types. [php.net]

[jatar_k]

that could also be written like so

echo "<p><a href=\"$linkurl\">$linktitle</a></p>";

only difference being that it is enclosed by double quotes meaning that variables inside will be evaluated. We then also need to escape (precede with \) all double quotes contained within the string to be echo'ed