HTML inside a "return" - newbie syntax

[Jhgorton]

I have a function:

?php function my_post_meta ($post, $field) {
	$value = get_post_meta ($post->ID, $field, true);
	if ($value !== "") {
		return $field . " " . $value . "<br />";
	} else return "";
} ?>

The idea is that I print $field and $value somewhere down the line, but I need to have $field formatted as part of

<span class="post-meta-key">

and I need to have $value formatted as part of

<span class="post-meta">

with the requisite closed tags.

I do not know what I am doing at all, I had someone walk me through defining the function with my hand close in his. But I've tried every combination of "<span>", . " s, and so on, but I get an unexpected T_STRING each time, for example:

<?php function my_post_meta ($post, $field) {
	$value = get_post_meta ($post->ID, $field, true);
	if ($value !== "") {
		return "<span class="meta-post-key>" . $field . " " . $value . "<br />";
	} else return "";
} ?>

I know it's bad because the syntax isn't the right color, but I haven't been able to teach myself the proper syntax. I've never been much of an autodidact. :o

[laserlight]

If you use double quoted strings then you must escape double quote literals within the string. In this case it is simpler to use single quoted strings:

return '<span class="meta-post-key">' . $field . ' ' . $value . '<br />';

[bradgrafelman]

More information and examples on how to handle escaping, variable interpolation, and more in the manual: [man]string[/man]. It might seem like a lot to read, but at least read the sections entitled single quoted, double quoted, and variable parsing (you can skip the heredoc and nowdoc sections for now).