What does <<< operator in php exactly do?

Question

I have seen the <<< operator many times , but I can't find any mention of this operator in PHP documentation. Can anyone please tell what this operator exactly does?

@Ibu: what an example would change ))) It always behaves in the same way, like it is explained in documentation. — zerkms, Jun 17 '11 at 05:10
possible duplicate of [Reference - What does this symbol mean in PHP?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3737139/reference-what-does-this-symbol-mean-in-php) — deceze, Jun 17 '11 at 05:11
@Ibu: heredoc is as simple as `+`, so for every developer manual should be enough — zerkms, Jun 17 '11 at 05:13

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 17 '11 at 05:10

Full explanation here.

With a bit easier explanation here.

Heredoc syntax is a way to delimit strings in PHP (and other languages) with 3 “less than” symbols: <<<.

The good part about it:

Heredoc text behaves just like a double-quoted string, without the double quotes. This means that quotes in a heredoc do not need to be escaped. Variables are expanded, but the same care must be taken when expressing complex variables inside a heredoc as with strings.

Thanks! That's just what I wanted ! – johngreen Jun 17 '11 at 05:12 — johngreen, Jun 17 '11 at 05:12

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 17 '11 at 05:10

1

Here is one place where it is used

$longString = <<<STR

This is a String and this method of creating it is called HEREDOC

STR;

answered Jun 17 '11 at 05:10

Ibu

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score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 17 '11 at 05:11

0

<<< is the opener for the HEREDOC syntax. You follow it by an arbitrary string which is used as terminator. It's alternative syntax to quotes. See: http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.types.string.php#language.types.string.syntax.heredoc

answered Jun 17 '11 at 05:11

deceze

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What does <<< operator in php exactly do?

3 Answers3