FAQ: Introduction to PHP - How is PHP Executed?

Frequently Asked Questions PHP FAQ
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This community-built FAQ covers the “How is PHP Executed?” exercise from the lesson “Introduction to PHP”.

Paths and Courses
This exercise can be found in the following Codecademy content:

Learn PHP

FAQs on the exercise How is PHP Executed?

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2

So I was wondering why php code starts with <?php and ends with ?>.
Why the question mark? Wouldn’t it just look better without it, so why add it? Is there a specific reason for this?

3

Rasmus Lerdorf on implementing the first version of PHP “I wrote a very simple parser that would pick tags out of HTML files and replace them with the output of the corresponding functions in the C library.”

Maybe, but I highly doubt anyone really cares…

Besides, in pure PHP files, you’ll only find one <?php tag at the very top of the file.

In the views, we now mostly use template engines that make using the php tags obsolete.

Instead of <?php echo $variable; ?>, we’ll write {{ $variable }} instead.

1 Like
4

Why does PHP show <?php echo "I love PHP!"; on Codecademy?

However, in PHP website it shows <?php echo "I love PHP!"; ?>

Can someone explain please?

5

In a PHP-only file, there’s no need to provide a closing tag.

<?php

$hello = 'Hello, World!';

echo $hello;

It’s actually a PSR-2 recommendation to omit it:

The closing ?> tag MUST be omitted from files containing only PHP.

That said, within a HTML file, you’ll have to use the closing tag, otherwise the rest of the file would be treated as if it was PHP code.

So, for example:

<html>
<body>
  <h1><?php echo 'Hello, World!'; ?></h1>
  <p>This is a simple Hello World page.</p>
</body>
</html>

Hope this answers your question!

4 Likes
6

Even after doing as instructed, it still doesn’t show as it should.
I ran the same code on Codecademy after I deleted the closing tag and this is how the file looks in browser.
the quotation mark and semicolon of the php code are visible, how can I change that??
I even tried it on different browsers but it still shows the same result.

Screenshot 2021-09-21 at 15-41-47 Screenshot
Screenshot 2021-09-21 at 15-41-47 Screenshot1366×695 6.89 KB

7

Hey there,

Could you please share some code so that we can check what might have gone wrong?

Thanks :slight_smile:

8

While learning HTML I would simply execute the code in any browser, but I just found out that for most programming languages you need to download a framework for it. In my case, I downloaded “xampp” and I have no problem now. Since I had no programming experience, I couldn’t have known that.
I hope this comment would be of help to a beginner who might find themselves stuck here too. :grinning:

9

Xampp is not a framework, xampp is a collection of tools

the browser (front-end) only understands html, css and JavaScript. PHP is a back-end language, so first the php files need to be parsed to a format the browser understands (html).

1 Like