Question

echo "<input  type=\"text\" size=3 name=\"{$item[\"name\"]}\"/>";

but following works fine

echo "<input  type=\"text\" size=3 name=\"{$item['name']}\"/>";

As per my understanding \” really escape the “

Answer 1

You don’t need to escape the quotes inside the {}. That’s supposed to be quoted because it means the string index "name" for the PHP array $name. Without quotes (or escaped quotes), name is treated as a constant (which I’m assuming it isn’t), and then you’ve got an extra pair of quotes which don’t belong.

OTOH, this would also be correct:

echo "<input  type=\"text\" size=\"3\" name=\"$item[name]\"/>";

(no quotes around name and no {} either)

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

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re:comment

Any non-keyword without quotes or the $ sign is regarded as a constant (as you can define with the define function), thus "name" (with quotes) is a string, and name without quotes is a constant.

when written like this, however:

echo "{$item[name]}";

PHP will first look for a constant with the name name, then if it doesn’t exist, it will use the string "name". However, it will (depending on your settings?) also issue a warning.