Table of contents
1.
Introduction
2.
Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP)
3.
What is Echo in PHP?
3.1.
Syntax
4.
Examples
4.1.
Printing Single String
4.2.
Output
4.2.1.
Explanation
4.3.
Printing Multiple Strings
4.4.
Output
4.4.1.
Explanation
4.5.
Printing the values from a Function Call
4.6.
Output
4.6.1.
Explanation
4.7.
Displaying Variable Values
4.8.
Output
4.8.1.
Explanation
4.9.
Integration with HTML
4.9.1.
Output
4.9.2.
Explanation
5.
Echo vs Print in PHP
6.
Frequently Asked Questions
6.1.
What is PHP?
6.2.
What is an echo statement in PHP?
6.3.
Can we display multiple strings using a PHP echo statement?
6.4.
What is the main difference between echo and print statements?
6.5.
How can we integrate HTML tags with echo in PHP?
7.
Conclusion
Last Updated: Mar 27, 2024
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PHP Echo

Author Aditya Gupta
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Introduction

PHP is an open source scripting language. You might have heard the term echo while working with PHP programming language. You must have wondered why we use Echo statements in PHP when both echo, and print statements do the same job of displaying the output in PHP.

PHP Echo

In this blog, we will discuss echo statements in PHP along with various examples and comparison chart with print statements in PHP.

Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP)

It is a popular programming language mainly used in web development.

php

PHP scripts are inserted in HTML codes to make the web pages more interactive and dynamic. PHP is an open source scripting language that executes the code directly on the server. When the code is directly executed on the server, the user does not have any idea of the underlying code.

What is Echo in PHP?

We should not confuse Echo statements in PHP with a function. It is basically a language construct that helps in defining the structure of code. Other examples of language constructs are for and while loops.

Echo statements in PHP are used to output single and multiple strings. It contains a list of expressions as an argument and does not have any return type. It can be used with or without parentheses as it is a language construct. One main disadvantage of using Echo statements is that they cannot be called by variable functions.

Syntax

echo(string ...$expressions)
echo string1, string2, …
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We can use the expressions with or without parentheses, and It does not return anything.

Examples

Now Let us look at some of the examples of Echo statements in  PHP to make the concept more clear.

Printing Single String

<?php
echo "Output without brackets <br>";
echo ("Output with brackets");
?>
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Output

output

Explanation

In this example, we displayed a single string using an echo statement with and without opening and closing brackets.

Printing Multiple Strings

<?php
echo "Hello, " . "World!";
?>
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Output

output

Explanation

In this example, we displayed two different strings using the echo statement in PHP.

Printing the values from a Function Call

<?php
function multiply($a, $b) {
return $a * $b;
}
echo "The product is: " . multiply(4, 5);
?>
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Output

output

Explanation

In this example, we printed the value of the multiply function by using echo statement.

Displaying Variable Values

<?php
$txt1 = "Learning PHP Echo Statements";
$txt2 = "Displaying Variables and their sum";
$x = 10;
$y = 8;

echo $txt1 . "<br>";
echo $txt2 . "<br>";
echo $x . " + " . $y . " = " . ($x + $y);
?>
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Output

output

Explanation

In this example, we displayed variable values along with strings using echo statements.

Integration with HTML

<?php
echo "<h1>Welcome to my website</h1>";
echo "Welcome to my website";
?>
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Output

output

 

Explanation

In this example, we integrated HTML H1 tage in echo statement to print the output string in Heading 1 form.

Echo vs Print in PHP

There is always confusion regarding the importance of using echo statements when both echo and print can be used to print output in PHP. Let us look at the comparison chart below to find out the difference between Echo and Print in PHP.

Echo Statement

Print Statement

We can pass multiple arguments in the echo statement.

We can only pass a single argument in a print statement.

It does not have any return value.

It has a return value of 1.

It can be used in control structures such as for and while loops.

It cannot be used in control structures.

It is marginally faster in comparison to print statements.

It is slower in comparison to the Echo statement.

Echo statements are mostly used to display simple texts.

Print statements are mostly used to display complex expressions in PHP.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is PHP?

It is a popular programming language mainly used in web development. PHP scripts are inserted in HTML codes to make the web pages more interactive and dynamic.

What is an echo statement in PHP?

Echo statements in PHP are used to output single and multiple strings. It contains a list of expressions as an argument and does not have any return type. Echo statements in PHP are used to output single and multiple strings. It contains a list of expressions as an argument and does not have any return type.

Can we display multiple strings using a PHP echo statement?

Yes, we can display multiple strings using PHP echo statements by separating them with commas. We can also use a simple dot between the strings.

What is the main difference between echo and print statements?

Echo statements are generally faster in comparison to print statements, and they do not have any return value, while print statements always return an integer value of 1.

How can we integrate HTML tags with echo in PHP?

We can make use of HTML tags by enclosing them inside quotes. For example, if we want to print a string as a heading in PHP, we can use the echo statement and use the heading tag inside the quotes of the string.

Conclusion

In this article, we discussed PHP Echo. We learnt about echo statements in PHP along with examples and comparison chart with print statements in PHP.  Alright! So now that you have learnt about PHP Echo, you can also refer to other similar articles. 

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