PHP echo

echo is the tool you will use the most. It sends text to the output, which is the browser or the terminal.

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<?php
echo "Hello, world!";

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Hello, world!

Print more than text

echo can print strings, numbers and variables.

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<?php
$name = "Maya";
$age = 28;

echo "Name: " . $name . "\n";
echo "Age: " . $age;

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Name: Maya
Age: 28

The dot (.) joins strings together. The \n is a new line character. It makes a line break in the terminal. In a web page, a browser ignores a plain new line, so you use <br> or HTML tags instead, which the next example shows.

Print HTML

echo can print HTML. The browser reads it like any other HTML.

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<?php
echo "<h2>Latest posts</h2>";
echo "<p>Nothing here yet.</p>";

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<h2>Latest posts</h2><p>Nothing here yet.</p>

Several values in one echo

You can give echo several values separated by commas. No joining is needed.

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<?php
$city = "Pune";
echo "I live in ", $city, ".";

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I live in Pune.

echo is not a function

echo is a language construct, so you write it without parentheses. echo("Hi") also works, but the brackets do nothing. They just wrap one value.

The short echo tag

In templates, <?= $value ?> is a short form of <?php echo $value; ?>. You saw it in PHP Tags.

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<?php
$price = 499;
echo "Price: " . $price . " INR";

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Price: 499 INR