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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.
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 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.
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.