Escaping from HTML

There are four ways of escaping from HTML and entering "PHP code mode":

Example 5-1. Ways of escaping from HTML 1. <? echo ("this is the simplest, an SGML processing instruction\n"); ?> <?= expression ?> This is a shortcut for "<? echo expression ?>" 2. <?php echo("if you want to serve XHTML or XML documents, do like this\n"); ?> 3. <script language="php"> echo ("some editors (like FrontPage) don't like processing instructions"); </script> 4. <% echo ("You may optionally use ASP-style tags"); %> <%= $variable; # This is a shortcut for "<%echo .." %>

The first way is only available if short tags have been enabled. This can be done by enabling the short_open_tag configuration setting in the PHP config file, or by compiling PHP with the --enable-short-tags option to configure.

The second way is the generally preferred method, as it allows for the next generation of XHTML to be easily implemented with PHP.

The fourth way is only available if ASP-style tags have been enabled using the asp_tags configuration setting.

The closing tag for the block will include the immediately trailing newline if one is present.