PHP - To echo or not to echo?

Question

What is more efficient and/or what is better practice, to echo the HTML or have many open and close php tags?

Obviously for big areas of HTML it is sensible

Answer 1

From a maintenance perspective, one should have the HTML / XML as separate from the code as possible IMO, so that minor changes can be made easily even by a non-technical person.

The more a homogeneous block the markup is, the cleaner the work.

One way to achieve this is to prepare as much as possible in variables, and using the heredoc syntax:

// Preparation

$var1 = get_value("yxyz");
$var2 = get_url ("abc");
$var3 = ($count = 0 ? "Count is zero" : "Count is not zero");
$var4 = htmlentities(get_value("def"));

// Output  

echo <<
   

     

       $var2
     
   
  

EOT;

You will want to use more sensible variable names, of course.

Edit: The link pointed out by @stesch in the comments provides some good arguments towards using a serializer when producing XML, and by extension, even HTML, instead of printing it out as shown above. I don't think a serializer is necessary in every situation, especially from a maintenance standpoint where templates are so much more easy to edit, but the link is well worth a read. HOWTO Avoid Being Called a Bozo When Producing XML

Another big advantage of the separation between logic and content is that if transition to a templating engine, or the introduction of caching becomes necessary one day, it's almost painless to implement because logic and code are already separated.