What are the advantages to putting your Javascript in a .php file?

Question

I occasionally come across pages where some Javascript is included via a PHP file:

Answer 1

If you don't have full server access and can't turn on gzip encoding then it's pretty useful to put the following in your javascript file (note: will need to be renamed to file.js.php or parsed as PHP through .htaccess directive):

// put all your regular javascript below...

You could also use it for better cache control, visitor tracking, etc in lieu of server-controlled solutions.