Question

If I am inside a ton of PHP code, instead of coming out of PHP I usually write code which contains variables like so:

echo "This is how I use a ".$variable." inside a string";

but is it more efficient to actually get out of PHP like so:

?>

Should I instead use the <? echo $variable; ?> like this

<? // then back into PHP

Throughout a page there will be lots of instances of code like this as I fill pages with dynamic content, or is this too much of a generalisation?

Answer 1

I only suggest breaking out of php tags when echoing HTML, not just a string.

This is fine for just a string:

// You don't need to concat, double quotes interpolate variables
echo "This is how I use a $variable inside a string";

But with HTML, personally, I like to do this:

<?php //... ?>
<div>
    <span>This is how I use a <?=$variable?> inside HTML</span>
</div>
<?php //... ?>