a silly question

[harmor]

I'm trying to make a video tutorial on basic PHP and I don't even know why we use quotation marks such as in echo statements. All I know is that we have to use them.

So why do we use quotation marks? I want to say "We use quotation marks to tell PHP that were are starting the string".

[NogDog]

http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.types.string.php

[harmor]

So you don't know either?
I know how to use quotation marks but I don't know how to explain why we need them.

If you would read some of my older posts you'll see I'm not a novice so don't assume I am because I'm asking simple question.

[NogDog]

Because (as the manual page I linked to explains) using quotation marks is one way to define a string literal (you can also use the "heredoc" method, also explained on that page). Simple expressions are either going to be numbers, variables, constants, or string literals. If you don't quote a string literal (or use heredoc quoting), then PHP is going to see the words as a sequence of constants and/or numbers (or variables if any of the words begins with a "$"), which of course has a completely different meaning than a literal string of characters.

[Weedpacket]

Well, without them PHP would have no clue about where PHP code ends and literal text begins (or vice versa):

echo $5.00 plus postage; sales tax not included

print print order;

[harmor]

Thanks.