1 after PHPInfo()

starfish

I have a very odd problem with PHP which I haven't managed to resolve so far. I am uncertain whether the problem is an installation or a coding problem. The problem is below...

I have installed PHP on an IIS6 server and it seems to render PHP pages perfectly except for a number 1 at the bottom of the page. The number 1 doesn't seem to be code based as the file is a phpinfo page containing nothing but the following code:

<?= phpinfo() ?>

When code above is rendered I have the good old information about modules and the server but I also get a 1 at the bottom of the page?

I have tried typing "php -i" at the command line but no sign of the one exists when php list the server vars etc.

I have a sneeky feeling it is a problem with the PHP.INI file or maybe the way php-cgi.exe is rendering the page. I have also tried using php5isapi.dll file with the same effect -- a 1 at the bottom of the phpinfo() script.

Has anyone else run into this and can perhaps shed some light on my problem.

drew010

phpinfo() is an interesting function ( i guess ). if you come from a c background, you know that a value returning function really shouldnt output anything. but if you check the php manual, phpinfo returns an int. reason being, you can tell it to display one thing or more so if what you tell it to show doesnt exist, it may return a 0 indicating failure. many professional scripts with installation setups will use phpinfo to determine if your config will work, so they use phpinfo's return value to see if everything checks out.
since the <?= syntax really means <?php echo... what you are doing is running phpinfo which outputs all your info, and then it returns 1, which is then printed by the echo statement.
to summarize, change
<?= phpinfo(); ?> has echo
to
<?php phpinfo(); ?> no echo here

starfish

Yes, that was it -- Thank you. It's been a while since I have developed in PHP and have gotten lazy with the way functions are returned and handled in other languages.

I was having a problem with an include statement which was generally the same <?= include 'xxxxx.php' ?> (contains some commonly used functions) but it was giving me the same result as <?= phpinfo() ?>.

Thanks for your knowledge and alleviating my hair pulling session.

Mordecai

You're probably better off without <?=. Actually, I would wager to say that you are definately better off without it. Just use <?php all the time. This will be especially important if you ever work with XML, since you'll want to turn short_tags off.
If you're planning on this code running on any other server, be sure not to use short tags.

starfish

Thanks for the extra advice. I rarely use XML, but it will be handy later.

However, why should <?php be more reliable or more stable than <?. I was under the impression that <? (short tags) get rendered to <?php when the page goes through the php processor. Maybe I am wrong, if it's not doing that then why bother including them?

TheDefender

<? is short tag syntax. This is a configurable option and so can vary from host to host. It can even vary on the same host from one day to the next if your webhost decides to turn off short tags.

<?php will ALWAYS work regardless of the configuration. Might as well save some hairs and headaches by coding this way, so that's one less problem to try to troubleshoot later.

Mordecai

Well, here's where the problem comes into hand. XML also starts with <?, like so:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

The PHP parser then sees the <?, and assumes it's PHP. This causes a syntax error, since it doesn't understand anything inside that tag.

One way to get around that is to use [font=courier new]<?php echo '<?'; ?>[/font], but if you're going through that much trouble, it'd be just as easy to use the proper tag, <?php.

Hope that answered your question.

starfish

Ah .. I see it all becomes clear now. I must admit that I have always used <? and had no problems with it, but I do plan on using XML either in this project or the next and that will save me a lot of time.

Thanks for all the advice and tips, fellas.

Weedpacket

Originally posted by starfish
Ah .. I see it all becomes clear now. I must admit that I have always used <? and had no problems with it, but I do plan on using XML either in this project or the next and that will save me a lot of time.

Remember to turn short_tags off in php's configuration file when you do this, though - or it will still choke when it sees <?xml .

It's pretty easy to change a script from using short tags to long tags; 99% of the time a few global search-and-replace jobbies will do it: <?= --> <? echo, <? --> <?php, and <?phpphp -> <?php. The other 1% is when you've got <? in the file for some other reason as well.

Don't you wish XML's developers had heard of PHP before designing the standard?

TheDefender

Originally posted by Weedpacket
Don't you wish XML's developers had heard of PHP before designing the standard?

Or perhaps, don't you wish you had read up on the XML standards before you coded with short tags? 😉