Question

Im new to PHP and I can’t figure out what the rules are for using the echo function. For example, if I need to echo a large block of css/js, do I need to add echo to each line of text or is there a way to echo a large block of code with a single echo?

When I try to echo a big block of code like this one, I get an error:

if (is_single()) {
echo '<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="http://jotform.com/css/styles/form.css"/><style type="text/css"> 
.form-label{
width:150px !important;
}
.form-label-left{
width:150px !important;
}
.form-line{
padding:10px;
}
.form-label-right{
width:150px !important;
}
body, html{
margin:0;
padding:0;
background:false;
}

.form-all{
margin:0px auto;
padding-top:20px;
width:650px !important;
color:Black;
font-family:Verdana;
font-size:12px;
}
</style> 

<link href="http://jotform.com/css/calendarview.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> 
<script src="http://jotform.com/js/prototype.js" type="text/javascript"></script> 
<script src="http://jotform.com/js/protoplus.js" type="text/javascript"></script> 
<script src="http://jotform.com/js/protoplus-ui.js" type="text/javascript"></script> 
<script src="http://jotform.com/js/jotform.js?v3" type="text/javascript"></script> 
<script src="http://jotform.com/js/location.js" type="text/javascript"></script> 
<script src="http://jotform.com/js/calendarview.js" type="text/javascript"></script> 
<script type="text/javascript"> 

JotForm.init(function(){
$('input_6').hint('ex: [e-mail]');
});
</script>';
}else {

}

Is there a better way to echo large blocks of code without a lot of work (adding echo to each line for example)?

Answer 1

One option is to get out of the php block and just write HTML.

With your code, after the opening curly brace of your if statement, end the PHP:

if (is_single()) { ?>

Then remove the echo ' and the ';

After all your html and css, before the closing }, write:

<? } else {

If the text you want to write to the page is dynamic, it gets a little trickier, but for now this should work fine.