Question

Suppose I want to create a select box in PHP.

$months = array ('Jan','Feb','Mar','Apr','May','Jun','Jul','Aug','Sep','Oct','Nov','Dec');

Option 1:

<select name="month">
    <option value="">Month</option>
    <option value="">-------</option>
    <?php foreach ($months as $monthNum => $month) { ?>
    <option value="<?php echo $monthNum+1 ?>"><?php echo $month ?></option>
    <?php } ?>
</select>

Option 2:

<select name="month">
    <option value="">Month</option>
    <option value="">-------</option>
    <?php 
        foreach (months() as $monthNum => $month) 
            echo '<option value="' . ($monthNum+1) . '">' . $month . "</option>\n"; 
?>
</select>

I personally think Option 1 renders the code harder to read and understand, at the same time Option 2 screws the indentation and puts more HTML into PHP.

Which option is preferred?

EDIT: I don’t want to add another template engine on top of PHP, which is itself a template engine.

Answer 1

I think the second option is better because things like <option value="<?php echo $monthNum+1 ?>"> simply are hard to read and understand and imho even a little bit illogical (a tag in a tag.)

But honestly, use what you like more. Only one suggestions: Maybe instead of using <?php foreach () { ?> ... <?php } ?> which is sometimes hard to understand you may use this syntax: <?php foreach (): ?> ... <?php endforeach; ?>. Especially if you start having foreaches in fors in whiles in foreaches in fors this syntax may be a little bit easier to understand.