Echo or Print?

jimson

well, i will explain my way a byte.

no HTML should be glued into PHP script like this

<table border="1">
<?php
for($i=0; $i<10; $i++) {
?>
<tr><td><?php echo $i?></td></td>
<?php
}
?>
</table>

data should be outside of PHP.
tats why xml exists, xslt and ... 🙂

ahundiak

Jimson.
I still don't get it. In one case you use only echo statements to output html. In the second case you put out html while switching to php to output variables.

How does outputting everything from inside of php tags separate content from presentation?

To me they look the same except that the second case is easier to read because you don't have to worry as much about quotes,double quotes and new lines.

dalecosp,

Content is text and images, generally coded in HTML.

I don't fully agree that content is generally encoded in HTML. To me at least the content is the text or image itself. It's when you want to present the content that you start to wrap it in html tags.

jimson

well ahundiak..
the first case and second case is the cases i wish to tell all, DON'T USE or DON't CODE LIKE TAT. they are bad practices usually people did.

did u notice the asterik
* this might be a way, but u should escape from have a coding style like this.

in my first case.
IMHO, the first case is better a bit compare to second.
maybe coz i didn't indent it and how it using [php.] tag

May GOD bless u , me, and all of us... 🙂

ahundiak

I guess I don't understand which style you think is best.

Is it option 3 from several posts ago?

3. start one with <?php and end one with ?>, make sure u don't have more than one <?php ?> in your script

If so, are you saying that php scripts should never output html? That only tools such as xslt should produce html?

laserlight

I don't fully agree that content is generally encoded in HTML. To me at least the content is the text or image itself.

I think he probably meant content in terms of PHP.

dalecosp

I suppose I didn't word that clearly enough. After looking at Ahundiak's post, I think he said it better. Perhaps I should have said "you can generally tell where the content lies because it is wrapped in HTML tags." which almost sounds like a direct quote of him....

<body> would be a major indicator, for example.... 🙂 And then, these days, as I mentioned earlier, there's <div> and <span> and such, that tell you that what's coming up is content that is being shaped up for presentation by a CSS file ... so, HTML is still just doing print house 'markup' --- AAMOF, it's a now the minimum-wage subordinate typesetter 'cuz it's boss "CSS" is telling it what to do in terms of layout...

As for the rest of this discussion, I'd just have to ask, 'what in the world?' PHP was made to output html, was it not? Based on some kind of logic to determine what HTML to output ... browsers read HTML; people wanted sites to interact, be somewhat 'intelligent'; so people began using Perl and then PHP to output HTML based on user actions or other conditions, like the date/time, current status of something else in the world, etc., ....

jimson

Originally posted by ahundiak
I guess I don't understand which style you think is best.

Is it option 3 from several posts ago?

If so, are you saying that php scripts should never output html? That only tools such as xslt should produce html?

yup, i suppose PHP should never output any HTML tag...
but it is hard to avoid the temptation.

PHP should handle the logic only and tat will make our script portable... in term of if we want to change our layout or whatsoever. What i see from many web application is, they use the pHp to push the HTML... which i personally think, should be avoided.

data shold be located in text file or database.

if u use templating system... tat is good. coz code will be more manageble. but should try xslt.
or should we find another way... 🙂

i just saw dalecosp post now....
one question pop up,
i think the success or the quality of a web application is
- do we have to recode our PHP script in order to change our site layout?
$recode = true : 'low quality' ; 'high quality';

low quality doesn't mean don't have quality, it means low in quality... 🙂 IMHO

Moonglobe

so let me get this straight.........

ahundiak's confused.

Jimson is saying that PHP should only be used for programming logic and that XML and XSLT should be used for presentation logic, unless you're using a template system where you can change one file to change the entire site.

Dalecosp is saying that PHP was designed for spitting out HTML and that's still what it's designed for, so use it like that.

Now personally, I have to agree with jimson about

<table border="1">
<?php
for($i=0; $i<10; $i++) {
?>
<tr><td><?php echo $i?></td></td>
<?php
}
?>
</table>

and

<?php
echo '<table border="0">'.
'<tr>'.
"<td>$myVar</td>".
'</tr>'.
'</table>'; 
?>

not being the best coding style i could think of.
currently i use a system of a template class that spits out the HTML in predefined functions, which i just redid a few weeks ago. this is my best code ever, and i actually tried to comment it so a friend who was just learning PHP could understand what i was doing. here is an example of one of my functions:

function add_style($style_rules, $return=false)
    {
        /************************************
        *This function adds a set of style  *
        *rules for a local page. the array  *
        *$style_rules should look like this:*
        * array("h1"=>array("color"=>"red"))*
        ************************************/
        $r="";
        $r.="<style type=\"text/css\">\n";
        foreach ($style_rules as $element=>$elm_array)
        {
            $r.=$element." {\n";
            foreach ($elm_array as $keyword=>$value)
            {
                $r.="    ".$keyword.": ".$value.";\n";
            }
            $r.="}\n";
        }
        $r.="</style>";
        if ($return)
        {
            return $r;
        }
        else
        {
            echo $r;
            return true;
        }
    }

btw if you have any comments on this feel free to share......
so i would use something like this in my page:

include "template.php";
$p = new Template(false);
//....
$styles = array(
                "a:link"=>array(
                               "color"=>strtolower($_SESSION['alink'])
                               ),
                "a:visited"=>array(
                                  "color"=>strtolower($_SESSION['vlink'])
                                  )
               );
$p->add_style($styles);
//....

but now that i have read through this thread, im beginning to think a new system might be in order. something like using the XML parsing functions, or creating my own (i've looked at XSLT and it's just way over my head for some reason). i could do something like this:

<page type="xhtml-strict" title="request" author="Moonglobe" version="1.0" stylesheet="allnorm.css">
<body text-color="red">
<heading size="1">
TEXT
</heading>
</body>
</page>

and convert it using PHP. i could use one setup file to tell it how to parse, then just use a $_GET switch. this, i think, would be a prime example of how to do what jimson is saying: completely seperate content from logic.

i dont even know if it's worth $0.0000002, but here's my "two cents" 😉

ahundiak

I confess my main interest in this thread was furthering my study of YodaSpeak.

I agree with the general notion of separating content and presentation. I disagree with the notion it's impossible to do so using php.

jimson

i show u my example (memory allocator code) base on your example
this code first posted in
http://www.phpbuilder.com/board/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10245354

function memory() { 
    static $data; 

switch(func_get_arg(0)) { 
    case 'a': 
        $args    =    func_get_args(); 
                    memory_parse($args[1]); 
                    @eval("\$data{$args[1]} = \$args[2];"); 
        break; 

    case 'g': 
        $args    =    func_get_args(); 
                    memory_parse($args[1]); 
                    @eval("\$r = \$data$args[1];"); 
                    return isset($r) ? $r : false; 
        break; 

    case 'dbg': 
        return $data; 
        break; 
} 
} 

function a($oMap, $oData) { 
    return memory('a', $oMap, $oData); 
} 

function g($oMap) { 
    return memory('g', $oMap); 
} 

function memory_parse(&$oMap) { 
    if(substr_count($oMap, '.') != 0) { 
        $oMap    =    explode('.', $oMap); 
        $oMap    =    "['".implode("']['", $oMap)."']"; 
                    if(substr($oMap, -4) == "['']") { 
                        $oMap = substr($oMap, 0, -4).'[]'; 
                    } 
    } else { 
        $oMap    =    "['".$oMap."']"; 
    } 
}

// to add a new style
a('styleA.link.color', strtolower($_SESSION['alink']));
a('styleA.visited.color', strtolower($_SESSION['vlink']));

a('styleB.linkA.color', strtolower($_SESSION['alink']));
a('styleB.linkB.color', strtolower($_SESSION['alink']));
a('styleB.visited.color', strtolower($_SESSION['vlink']));

a('styleC.link.color', strtolower($_SESSION['alink']));
a('styleC.visited.color', strtolower($_SESSION['vlink']));

a('styleD.link.color', strtolower($_SESSION['alink']));
a('styleD.visited.color', strtolower($_SESSION['vlink']));

// if u don't like to set A B C D, u can just 2 dots.
a('style..link.color', strtolower($_SESSION['alink']));


// u can have as many styles u want
// the style will be returned in array form when u 

g('styleA');
g('styleB.link');

// and so on...

// to debug
$a = memory('dbg');
print_r($a);
// will show all the variables values

i am not OOP type, me procedural type... 🙂 i don't really like "->" to access, setting variables.

this is part of my implementation to manageble code.
first, it simplify the making and getting of array and prevent the use of class OOP to store variables' values.

all my functions are stored in a module way where they all are intergrated with this core function memory.

upon application initialization, all configuration data will be stored into the memory. (i use fread() on WDDX file)

$handler = fopen('config.xml', 'rb');
$data = fread($handler, filesizeof('config.xml'));
fclose($handler);
a('config', $data);
// then i can access the configuration data anywhere, anyscope.

em... i generally didn't comment my code. 🙁 but i think it is easy to understand lah... u can try it and comment back to me so i can see what other's expectation and try to improve it.

basically, this is one of the good code i ever wrote.. 🙂

i got another script which implement building array

// this is cumbersome
$a = array('apple', 'orange', 'pinapple');

jimson

I confess my main interest in this thread was furthering my study of YodaSpeak.

ah hem... should i start a school or tuition centre... ?
how many want to join..

Yoda Language Chapters List.

darknuke · 2003-07-05T09:06:51+00:00

What do you use, echo or print?

Learn to speak incoherently.
Learn to speak in not so coherent way
Learn to make sounds that people feel hard a bit to understand.
Learn how to sounds hard for people to figure out what we want to sound.
Use mind to think and remember how to put our what we thought in our thought into a bit uneasy way for people to try so easily by making it not so easy to think what we thought.
...
and so on...

currently, paid members can submit their want chapter request and for free members, they have to become non-free members before they can do so.

ahundiak

Ok. So you wrote a wrapper which allows syntax like:
g('styleA.link.color');

Instead of
$data['styleA']['link']['color'];
Or
$data->styleA->link->color;

Maybe using a . instead of -> represents a great leap forward but I just don't see it.

You also showed adding an xml string to $data. But I don't see how that does you much good unless it's parsed later on.

darknuke

I feel so alone, I am the only one who uses print. 🙁

jimson

according to the poll
u are not the only one, unless u vote twice... 🙂

Moonglobe

omg! almost 29% chose print! what are you thinking people?!?!:eek:

:p :rolleyes: 😉

this IS what the post was originally about, right?

jimson

somebody please hack the echo button,
press one = press ten times.

laserlight

I doubt it, in a messageboard system requiring registration like vbulletin that cheat doesnt (or shouldnt) work, unless you decide to sign up for many accounts.

BuzzLY

The only advantage that print has over echo is that it returns a value, and can therefore be part of a more complex expression. If I have a need to take advantage of this property, then I would use print. Otherwise, I use echo.

Therefore, I am assuming that this poll is asking "If you need to print text, and either echo or print will work, which do you prefer to use?"

And in that case, my answer is "not Print Print Print Print."

clearbreach

I don't think we can use the fact that "print" is one character shorter than "echo" to justify that it saves you "typing time".

If this were true, you wouldn't bother posting your justification in this thread, wasting all of your precious characters and typing time. :p

But really, I use "echo" simply because that's the way I learned.

Weedpacket

Originally posted by clearbreach
I don't think we can use the fact that "print" is one character shorter than "echo" to justify that it saves you "typing time".

If this were true, you wouldn't bother posting your justification in this thread, wasting all of your precious characters and typing time. :p

Heh, very true. And of course it must be remembered that one of the more important properties of source code is that it be easy for humans to read, not just fast to type. (The computer doesn't care if it's ugly as long as it parses.) After all, how often will you write a particular program and how often will you read one (to fix, to maintain, to extend, or simply because you want to find out how it does what it does)? Where should you be trying to save time?