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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-26T19:10:44+00:00

I know that in php I can put a variable name inside a quoted

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I know that in php I can put a variable name inside a quoted string when I use echo, but I apparently can’t do this with a session variable. Can anyone explain why?

Here is the code, with the “offending” php commented out:

<?php
session_start();
$test = 100;
$_SESSION['test'] = 200;
?>
<html>
  <head>
    <title>Test</title>
  </head>
  <body>
  <p><?php echo($test."<br />");?></p>
  <p><?php echo("$test"."<br />");?></p>
  <p><?php echo($_SESSION['test']."<br />");?></p>
  <p><?php //echo("$_SESSION['test']"."<br />");?></p>
  </body>
</html>

And the output looks like this:

100

100

200

But if I uncomment the offending code line:

  <p><?php echo("$_SESSION['test']"."<br />");?></p>

I get no output and the following error:

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_ENCAPSED_AND_WHITESPACE, expecting T_STRING or T_VARIABLE or T_NUM_STRING in - on line 14

So I can go on my merry way knowing how to do it correctly (just keep the session variable outside of the double quotes), but I would really like to understand why this doesn’t work for session variables.

Thanks!

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Inside a double-quoted string you must enclose a complex variable (array or object property) in {}:

    <p><?php echo("{$_SESSION['test']}"."<br />");?></p>

    This isn’t an issue with $_SESSION specifically, but any array accessed by quoted keys. Note, that you can include a numerically indexed array value with wrapping in {}, as in "echo $array[2] is two";

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