Question

As a newbie, I have been advised to preferably use heredoc compared to too many nested codes (see Unexpected T_ELSE in php code).

But I can’t manage to understand if there is a significant difference between heredoc and nowdoc.

What would be the advantages for heredoc and nowdoc compared to the other one that would be important for a newbie to understand (i.e. not very minor advantages but important to understand for me).

Answer 1

Nowdocs are to single-quoted strings what heredocs are to double-quoted strings. A nowdoc is specified similarly to a heredoc, but no parsing is done inside a nowdoc. The construct is ideal for embedding PHP code or other large blocks of text without the need for escaping.

http://php.net/manual/en/language.types.string.php#language.types.string.syntax.nowdoc

In other words:

$foo = 'bar';

$here = <<<HERE
    I'm here, $foo !
HERE;

$now = <<<'NOW'
    I'm now, $foo !      
NOW;

$here is "I’m here, bar !", while $now is "I’m now, $foo !".

If you don’t need variable interpolation but need special characters like $ inside your string, Nowdocs are easier to use. That’s all.