What's good about no php end tags?

Mgccl

I saw some php code(like the facebook example code) where they don't have ?> end tag.
What's the benefit of that? can anyone explain?

NogDog

If a file is to be included/required into another PHP file, not having an end tag in the included file can help prevent "headers already sent" errors which could be caused by anything -- including spaces or newlines -- following the closing "?>" tag (you still have to make sure there is nothing before the opening "<?php" tag). Other than that, I am not aware of any further benefits.

bradgrafelman

NogDog wrote:
(you still have to make sure there is nothing before the opening "<?php" tag).

Which is why I've always wondered if this doesn't neglect the benefit of not using end tags. It takes all of what... two seconds (literally) to hit (for Windows users in about every text-editing application) control-home and control-end key combos to make sure there's nothing extra?

shrug 'To each his own,' I suppose.

NogDog

Seems like I remember using some text editor (EMACS, maybe?) that would warn you when saving a file if the last non-empty line did not end with a newline. Maybe there are some over-zealous editors that automatically add it?

Weedpacket

bradgrafelman wrote:
Which is why I've always wondered if this doesn't neglect the benefit of not using end tags.

Then again, it's a lot easier to see a blank line at the top of the file, before the <?php, than it is to see the blank line at the end of the file, after the ?>

rowanparker

NogDog wrote:
Seems like I remember using some text editor (EMACS, maybe?) that would warn you when saving a file if the last non-empty line did not end with a newline. Maybe there are some over-zealous editors that automatically add it?

gEdit adds a new line by itself.
Hasn't caused me any errors so far.