FollowText.com » Internet » Web-development » Php » How PHP Developers Differentiate Between Print And Echo

---

How PHP Developers Differentiate Between Print And Echo

by: ZacharySchuessler
Total views: 9 | Word Count: 446

The Internet for webmasters just wouldn't be the same without the language of PHP. PHP has given webmasters a long-lasting relationship with their websites, to manipulate it to best offer customers and Internet users what they need. But before becoming the master PHP expert, learning smaller details is important. And interestingly enough, many PHP developers don't know the difference between Echo and Print.

Everyone in the PHP web development community is familiar with Echo and Print- two commands to output data to the screen. But what they may not know is that the two have the same output and similar structure- so why two commands for the same task?

Print is actually something more of a function, as it can be enclosed in brackets. Echo lacks this ability, but then again, there is almost never a need to do so. In reality, having this ability is something that even those who have seen it all in PHP likely won't need to make use of. This just adds more confusion to the topic than what was previously apparent.

While performance may be a big issue for PHP developers and their clients, the debate between Print and Echo is actually fairly meaningless. It is true that Print will take more system resources to use, but it is such a minimalistic amount that developers are recommended to choose the construct of their choice, regardless of speed issues.

So far the industry standard has been to use Echo, but it should be stressed that either command may be used at will. Echo seems to be the favorite as it is easier to type, not to mention it's a fun word to say! Those who favor the Print command are usually older programmers, who are accustomed to using the command Print from other programming languages that are now considered archaic.

As a last note of worthiness, it should be made clear that if speed is an issue, more emphasis should be put on how the two commands are used. Repeatedly using either command where a programmer could simply concatenate a string or value together will waste system performance- and on a much more noticeable scale that the difference between returning a value or not. Thus, this subject should be addressed if anything in regards to speed.

Closing Comments

PHP development just wouldn't be the same without fun debates such as the one just mentioned. But in reality, it really doesn't matter which route is taken- so long as either language construct is used in a performance-based manner. Although Print may still have somewhat of a following today, as books and publishers start using Echo more often, it's likely we'll see a death to the Print command soon enough.

---

---

About the Author

Learn more on PHP Print and PHP Echo.  

---

---

More Articles from: PHP

1: Points In PHP And SQL Security Topics Explained
    (By: ChrisChanning, On: Jul 16th 2008, Words: 497, Views: 8)
2: Differences Between Two Printing Commands In PHP
    (By: ZacharySchuessler, On: Jul 16th 2008, Words: 441, Views: 8)
3: How PHP Developers Differentiate Between Print And Echo
    (By: ZacharySchuessler, On: Jul 13th 2008, Words: 446, Views: 9)

---

FollowText.com » Internet » Web-development » Php » How PHP Developers Differentiate Between Print And Echo

---