Re: Help trying to display a PHP variable within HTML tags

On Feb 4, 2010, at 10:45 AM, web400-request@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

ALSO.... Putting the code in my <PHP section works.......

That's the only way it will (or can) ever work.

PHP variables are nothing but a character string when simply embedded in HTML. They are only treated as a variable within the context of the <?php ... ?> bracketing. That is the only part of the script that the PHP interpreter gets to process - Apache handles the rest.

The normal techniques are either:

1) Use echo to output the entire HTML string e.g. <?php echo "<htmltag> $phpvar </htmltag>" ?>

2) Embed a php code island within the HTML e.g. <htmltag> <?php echo $phpvar ?> </htmltag>

The second option has the advantage that most HTML editors will recognize the php tags and you can see the page the way it is supposed to be - and of course the html can be validated correctly which it cannot within an echo.

I've covered some of this stuff in my PHP intro series for RPGers which is being published by Penton. You can find part 1 here:
http://systeminetwork.com/article/php-rpg-perspective-part-1-phpundamentals%E2%80%94-basics
The link to part 2 is at the the end. Part 3 should be available any- day-now.


Jon Paris

www.Partner400.com
www.SystemiDeveloper.com