PHP echo and print Statements
With PHP, there are two basic ways to get output: echo
and print
.
In this tutorial we use echo
or print
in almost every
example. So, this chapter contains a little more info about those two output
statements.
PHP echo and print Statements
echo
and print
are more or less the same. They are both used to output data
to the screen.
The differences are small: echo
has no return value while print
has a return value of 1 so it can be used in
expressions. echo
can take multiple parameters (although such usage is rare)
while print
can take one argument. echo
is marginally
faster than print
.
The PHP echo Statement
The echo
statement can be used with or without parentheses:
echo
or echo()
.
Display Text
The following example shows how to output text with the echo
command (notice that the text can contain HTML markup):
Example
echo "<h2>PHP is Fun!</h2>";
echo "Hello world!<br>";
echo "I'm about to learn PHP!<br>";
echo "This ", "string ", "was ", "made ", "with multiple parameters.";
Try it Yourself »
Display Variables
The following example shows how to output text and variables with the echo
statement:
Example
$txt1 = "Learn PHP";
$txt2 = "W3Schools.com";
echo "<h2>$txt1</h2>";
echo "<p>Study PHP at $txt2</p>";
Try it Yourself »
Using Single Quotes
Strings are surrounded by quotes, but there is a difference between single and double quotes in PHP.
When using double quotes, variables can be inserted to the string as in the example above.
When using single quotes, variables have to be inserted using the
.
operator, like this:
Example
$txt1 = "Learn PHP";
$txt2 = "W3Schools.com";
echo '<h2>' . $txt1 . '</h2>';
echo '<p>Study PHP at ' . $txt2 . '</p>';
Try it Yourself »
The PHP print Statement
The print
statement can be used with or without
parentheses:
print
or print()
.
Display Text
The following example shows how to output text with the print
command (notice that the text can contain HTML markup):
Example
print "<h2>PHP is Fun!</h2>";
print "Hello world!<br>";
print "I'm about to learn PHP!";
Try it Yourself »
Display Variables
The following example shows how to output text and variables with the
print
statement:
Example
$txt1 = "Learn PHP";
$txt2 = "W3Schools.com";
print "<h2>$txt1</h2>";
print "<p>Study PHP at $txt2</p>";
Try it Yourself »
Using Single Quotes
Strings are surrounded by quotes, but there is a difference between single and double quotes in PHP.
When using double quotes, variables can be inserted to the string as in the example above.
When using single quotes, variables have to be inserted using the
.
operator, like this:
Example
$txt1 = "Learn PHP";
$txt2 = "W3Schools.com";
print '<h2>' . $txt1 . '</h2>';
print '<p>Study PHP at ' . $txt2 . '</p>';
Try it Yourself »