Home/ Questions/Q 6560395
In Process

The Archive Base Latest Questions

Editorial Team
  • 0
Asked: 2026-05-25T13:27:15+00:00

Reading some PHP code and I cannot understand the usage of: <?= I understand

  • 0

Reading some PHP code and I cannot understand the usage of:

<?=

I understand the php tag use of:

<?php and <?

The exact usage I am reading is:

<?=$form->hidden('mode',$mode); ?>

where $form is a new instantiated class of an object and “hidden” a class method. All of that is understood, but when I place even a space between the ? and = of <?= I get an error of:

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected '=' in /home/...

I cannot find anything on google or php.net regarding the syntax.

Any help would be appreciated.

Share

Leave an answer

You must login to add an answer.

Need An Account,

1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    <?= is shorthand for <?php echo. Its usage isn’t recommended any more, apparently because of some ambiguity with the parser or incompatibility with some PHP versions, though I still see it in big projects like Drupal.

    Edit: They’re called “short tags” and a discussion on whether they should be used or not can be found here: Are PHP short tags acceptable to use?

    • 0