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Reference: Comparing PHP's print and echo

Is there any major and fundamental difference between these two functions in PHP?

Answer 1

From: http://web.archive.org/web/20090221144611/http://faqts.com/knowledge_base/view.phtml/aid/1/fid/40

1. Speed. There is a difference between the two, but speed-wise it should be irrelevant which one you use. echo is marginally faster since it doesn’t set a return value if you really want to get down to the nitty gritty.

2. Expression. print() behaves like a function in that you can do: $ret = print 'Hello World'; And $ret will be 1. That means that print can be used as part of a more complex expression where echo cannot. An example from the PHP Manual:

$b ? print 'true' : print 'false'; 

print is also part of the precedence table which it needs to be if it is to be used within a complex expression. It is just about at the bottom of the precedence list though. Only , AND OR XOR are lower.

3. Parameter(s). The grammar is: echo expression [, expression[, expression] ... ] But echo ( expression, expression ) is not valid. This would be valid: echo ('howdy'),('partner'); the same as: echo 'howdy','partner'; (Putting the brackets in that simple example serves no purpose since there is no operator precedence issue with a single term like that.)

So, echo without parentheses can take multiple parameters, which get concatenated:

   echo  'and a ', 1, 2, 3;   // comma-separated without parentheses    echo ('and a 123');        // just one parameter with parentheses 

print() can only take one parameter:

   print ('and a 123');    print  'and a 123';