Re: Newbie question about <?= ?>

Okay, after thinking about it, and looking at the replies, it seems as though there is only one situation where the short tags break things, and that's in XML with the <? ?> pair being valid for XML. Yes, enabling the short tags is in the ini file, but is it on by default and require effort to change? That's the real question, I think. Not, why shouldn't I use them the way they are, but why is it that the <?= ?> tag isn't designed into the language to be acceptable? Honestly, the <? ?> pair just feels a little lazy, since all you save are the 4 characters "php ", and all the code inside is the same. The <?= ?> tag gives you 7 characters free and does something unique. The situation I think of using it the most in is something such as: <li><a href="<?= $post->permLink; ?>">...</a></li> Which looks cleaner, in my opinion, than: <li><a href="<?php print $post->permLink; ?>">...</a></li> Not a whole lot larger, no, and perhaps you might say, Well, the second way is more explicit! Yes. Also, shouldn't it be possible to check for <?= ?> and, based on the '=' there, pop out of the parser if it comes across <?xml...?> ? Cheers, Mike > As was said before, the major reasons for not using short tags are: > > 1) Not everyone has access to the ini file, and might not be able to use > short > tags. If you're releasing your code to the public, you want to work in as > many places as possible, so then you should use <?php instead. > > 2) when using XML files, they use <?xml, and the <? is recognized as the > start > of a PHP block, but the following syntax will be correct and your code > will > fail. I have seen that someone suggested having PHP recognize <?xml as > not > being a PHP short tag, but I don't remember where off the top of my head. > > This does bring up an interesting idea though. It appears that <?php= is > not > valid. A lot of people use <?= as a sort of templating system instead of > adding the complexity of smarty or other templating systems (which are > fine). > Is it possible, or will it be possible, to use <?php="blah" ?> > > -- > Ray Hauge > Programmer/Systems Administrator > American Student Loan Services > www.americanstudentloan.com > 1.800.575.1099 >