PHP and Echo
As any beginner PHP could tell you, the echo function outputs data to the screen (or command line depending on how you're using PHP). Some, however, may not know that PHP's "echo()" isn't really a function at all. From PHP.net:
"echo() is not actually a function (it is a language construct), so you are not required to use parentheses with it. echo() (unlike some other language constructs) does not behave like a function, so it cannot always be used in the context of a function. Additionally, if you want to pass more than one parameter to echo(), the parameters must not be enclosed within parentheses."
So, instead of traditionally coding this...
echo("The MD5 of $text is: ".md5($text)."!");
...you can actually do this...
echo "The MD5 of $text is: ",md5($text),'!';
In fact, separating strings with commas is faster than concatenation! With a name like echo, it should be a bit crazy, right?
![CSS 3D Folding Animation]()
Google Plus provides loads of inspiration for front-end developers, especially when it comes to the CSS and JavaScript wonders they create. Last year I duplicated their incredible PhotoStack effect with both MooTools and pure CSS; this time I'm going to duplicate...
![Interview with a Pornhub Web Developer]()
Regardless of your stance on pornography, it would be impossible to deny the massive impact the adult website industry has had on pushing the web forward. From pushing the browser's video limits to pushing ads through WebSocket so ad blockers don't detect them, you have...
![HTML5 download Attribute]()
I tend to get caught up on the JavaScript side of the HTML5 revolution, and can you blame me? HTML5 gives us awesome "big" stuff like WebSockets, Web Workers, History, Storage and little helpers like the Element classList collection. There are, however, smaller features in...
![Fix Anchor URLs Using MooTools 1.2]()
The administrative control panel I build for my customers features FCKEditor, a powerful WYSIWYG editor that allows the customer to add links, bold text, create ordered lists, and so on. I provide training and documentation to the customers but many times they simply forget to...
Whoa the comma thing is a mindfreak. That saves some concatenated html output hell.
“In fact, separating strings with commas is faster than concatenation!”
I’m not sure what you mean by this? How is it faster?
I don’t think I have ever used parentheses with the echo. It’s weird to me to see it done like that.
@deef: It’s faster because PHP doesn’t need to continuously concatenate string upon string — commas allow for “Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!” instead of “……….BOOM!”.
@mark: I was high-horse about it for a while. To me it was a function so “echo()” was “best form.” Foolish, I was.
I ran a quick test to see if I would notice some speed differences using the commas, noticed about 10% output speed increase in the test script. Funny… didn’t kow about it. Thank you!
Well, I always use echo; I didn’t actually know you could do echo(), but no matter. Not a function? Strange.
I read about the comma versus dot thing on an optimization post. According to this guy’s tests is was nowhere near 10%, but commas were still faster nonetheless.
http://making-the-web.com/2007/08/24/tips-for-faster-php-scripts/
I always hated the concatenation! but didnt know that commas do it faster.
Thanks
Find an interesting PHP-Benchmark.
Somewhere down the page, there is also an echo-Benchmark.
Seems like commas are not allways faster.
http://www.phpbench.com/
Find => Found
allways => always
It was to early in the morning, sorry! :-)
http://www.phpbench.com/
The author only compares echo with commas/periods using either all string or all variable. I’d be interested in seeing a comparison using some combination of both variables and commas.. something like
$a = ‘bbbbbb’;
echo ‘aaaaaa’,$b,’aaaaaa’,$b;
vs
echo ‘aaaaaa’.$b.’aaaaaa’.$b;