Question

Can I change the PHP start and end tags?

Like if I modify the core library files and have something like

<!J

or

!#RR

In replacement of

<? ?>  or <?php ?>

Update

For those voting a close. Believe me there are people who will always ask this. For those wanting to know why? sighs

Yes I know about Nginx rewrite, Apache Handlers, Hiding code, remove extensions etc.. For me personally.. I like the idea of my own programming language I wish to create in future. Therefore re-writing tags on an existing template type language that uses C type libraries would be a start. I would get excited every time I start writing the vain for me is Here come the downvotes

Answer 1

As commented, PHP is an open source project. Therefore, you can modify it for personal use.

Ultimately this would involve updating the language syntax. From quickly poking around the PHP project on Github, I found the language scanner. Changing the appropriate definitions from php to whatever you want should allow you to customize the open/close tags.

Note: I do not advocate this whatsoever. And therefore haven’t tested such a solution. Although it should work in theory.