what is: <?=

[cretaceous]

hi - I've been happily building select arrays from mysql and then dropping them into my html with this code:

<select name="foo" id="foo">
<OPTION VALUE=0>Choose...
<?="$dd_foobar"?>
</select>

and now I'm a bit more experienced I'm wondering what the hell is this bit:
<?="$dd_foobar"?>

shouldn't it be:
<?php echo $dd_foobar?>

and why does the first version seem to work ok?

-I cant do a search on phpbuilder or Google for "<?="

[thorpe]

it is bassically the same as <?php echo 'blah ?>, just depends how php is configured.

[Skull]

http://www.hudzilla.org/phpbook/read.php/2_6_6

have a look at that

also theres no need to enclose variables inside quotations.

It runs faster to just do <?=$variable?> instead of <?="$variable"?>

just a little tip 🙂

[Weedpacket]

Another little tip is to not use <?= anyway, but (as you suspected) <?php echo instead. Short tags are a holdover from pre-XML days.

[cretaceous]

thanks guys - I kind of remembered "short tags" but I didnt think it worked by default - and the '=' is a new one on me - seems handy - a shame its deprecated

I don't usually put vars in quotes - but I copied the select code from somewhere months ago and didn't look at it too hard - (that must be what every newb says)