What does '

Question

<?php

$a=1;

?>
<?=$a;?>

What does <?= mean exactly?

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1963901/what-does-this-symbol-mean-in-php/1963912 — Mike B, Jan 07 '10 at 17:10
Note that the `;` is redundant; as the answers suggest this short-tag expands to an `echo` with a semicolon added to the end, as per the [php documents](http://php.net/manual/en/language.basic-syntax.phpmode.php). — not-just-yeti, Oct 05 '15 at 01:25

score 329 · Accepted Answer · edited Nov 19 '21 at 10:37

329

It's a shorthand for <?php echo $a; ?>.

It's enabled by default since 5.4.0 regardless of php.ini settings.

edited Nov 19 '21 at 10:37

Gleb Kemarsky

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answered Jan 07 '10 at 13:09

BalusC

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3

Is it available in php 7? – zachdyer Feb 27 '18 at 20:33
11

Note that the final semi-colon is not required. But if, for whatever reason, you need to go back to classic tags, a simple project-wide search/replace `=` for ` – TwystO Dec 04 '18 at 11:25

score 62 · Answer 2 · edited Nov 19 '21 at 10:35

62

It's a shorthand for this:

<?php echo $a; ?>

They're called short tags; see example #1 in the documentation.

edited Nov 19 '21 at 10:35

Gleb Kemarsky

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answered Jan 07 '10 at 13:09

Will Vousden

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Gordon · Answer 3 · 2014-08-29T06:41:12.663

Since it wouldn't add any value to repeat that it means echo, I thought you'd like to see what means in PHP exactly:

Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [0] => 368 // T_OPEN_TAG_WITH_ECHO
            [1] => <?=
            [2] => 1
        )
    [1] => Array
        (
            [0] => 309 // T_VARIABLE
            [1] => $a
            [2] => 1
        )
    [2] => ; // UNKNOWN (because it is optional (ignored))
    [3] => Array
        (
            [0] => 369 // T_CLOSE_TAG
            [1] => ?>
            [2] => 1
        )
)

You can use this code to test it yourself:

$tokens = token_get_all('<?=$a;?>');
print_r($tokens);
foreach($tokens as $token){
    echo token_name((int) $token[0]), PHP_EOL;
}

From the List of Parser Tokens, here is what T_OPEN_TAG_WITH_ECHO links to.

The token failed to tell me more details. – user198729 Jan 07 '10 at 14:14 — user198729, Jan 07 '10 at 14:14

score 14 · Answer 4 · answered Jan 07 '10 at 13:09

14

<?= $a ?> is the same as <? echo $a; ?>, just shorthand for convenience.

answered Jan 07 '10 at 13:09

Jeffrey Aylesworth

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score 8 · Answer 5 · answered Jan 07 '10 at 13:09

8

<?=$a; ?>

is a shortcut for:

<?php echo $a; ?>

answered Jan 07 '10 at 13:09

Inspire

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14

score 8 · Answer 6 · answered Jun 25 '17 at 22:20

8

As of PHP 5.4.0, <?= ?> are always available even without the short_open_tag set in php.ini.

Furthermore, as of PHP 7.0, The ASP tags: <%, %> and the script tag <script language="php"> are removed from PHP.

answered Jun 25 '17 at 22:20

Gaius Gracchus

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score 5 · Answer 7 · answered Jan 07 '10 at 13:10

5

It's a shortcut for <?php echo $a; ?> if short_open_tags are enabled. Ref: http://php.net/manual/en/ini.core.php

answered Jan 07 '10 at 13:10

Matteo Riva

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score 4 · Answer 8 · edited Sep 25 '17 at 20:55

4

I hope it doesn't get deprecated. While writing <? blah code ?> is fairly unnecessary and confusable with XHTML, <?= isn't, for obvious reasons. Unfortunately I don't use it, because short_open_tag seems to be disabled more and more.

Update: I do use <?= again now, because it is enabled by default with PHP 5.4.0. See http://php.net/manual/en/language.basic-syntax.phptags.php

edited Sep 25 '17 at 20:55

aefxx

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answered Jan 19 '10 at 11:02

antihero

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What does '

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