NYCPHP Meetup

[Hans Zaunere]

Aaron Fischer wrote on Friday, October 28, 2005 4:10 PM:
> Greetings listers,
> 
> A basic question I'm sure...  (I have checked PHundamentals and did
> some googling and manual searching and book skimming but haven't come
> up with the answers I'm looking for.)
> 
> I have currently been setting variable like so:
> Version A:
> $print_first_name = "You said your first name is
> {$_SESSION['first_name']}.";

This is my standard...

> At one time I think I had something like:
> Version B:
> $print_first_name = "You said your first_name is
> $_SESSION[first_name]."; 

Ewww....

> This would yield the same result on my server, but I think version B
> is incorrect and version A is correct.  I am thinking that Version B
> is incorrect as it is missing the single quotes around the var name,
> even though it does render OK on my server, perhaps it would not in
> another environment?

Absolutely - it's bad and sloppy.  Version B is creating notices (because
PHP first would try to interpret first_name as a constant) but you won't see
them unless you have E_ALL as your error reporting level.  This is an
instance of PHP being "nice" by second guessing what the code actually
means.

> Then I also had something like:
> Version C:
> $print_first_name = "You said your first_name is " .
> $_SESSION['first_name'] . ".";
> 
> Now I think Version C is technically correct, and the decision to use
> A or C is based on personal preference.

Agreed, it's a matter of preference.  There was a time in PHP when using
double quotes resulted in extra overhead because of some bug.  I don't
remember all the details, but as I remember this has been long corrected (I
believe by Andi).

Personally, I prefer Version A because it's easier to read.  I've never been
a fan of breaking strings up into a lot of concatenations with the period.

---
Hans Zaunere / President / New York PHP
   www.nyphp.org  /  www.nyphp.com