Re: POLL: To add the final ?> or not...

Hadn't paid much attention to the issue until reading a previous discussion on the topic, here on this list. After that, I decided to be consistent and leave the closing ?> out in all include files. To my eyes, ?> means "look there is more content coming", which seems kind of silly when there isn't. A neat thing with pairing every <?php with a ?> when mixed in HTML is that these are valid XML processing instructions. If your HTML satisfies XML well-formedness, your PHP document will also be valid XML. Not that I've ever had any need to process my layout templates as XML but anyway. Cheers, Mattias Daevid Vincent wrote:

I'm having a debate with a co-worker about adding the final ?> on a PHP page... To be honest, I am the lead, and I could pull rank and be done with the discussion, however I don't like to be that way. I would rather do the right thing. If my way of thinking is old-school (I've been coding since PHP/FI), and what he says is the newfangled proper PHP/Zend way, then I'd rather adopt that, despite how icky it makes me feel to leave an unclosed <?php just dangling and alone, all sad-like. In my mind, "nobody gets left behind"! :) Is there ANY side-effects to leaving the end ?> off? Is it any more work for the compiler? And yes I know computers are hella-fast and all that, but I come from the gaming industry where squeeking out an extra FPS matters, and shaving off 0.01s per row of data in a table matters if you have more than 100 rows. A 1 second wait IS noticeable and a 10 second is even moreso -- just try to talk for 10 seconds straight without a pause. Or sit there and stare at a screen for 10 seconds! If the main argument is that it's to prevent white-space after the code, then most modern editors that I'm aware of will automatically trim white-space (or have a setting to do so). Plus this is ONLY a factor when you're trying to output a header and things like that. In 90% of your code, you don't deal with that. It's also obvious enough when you have an extra character/space because PHP pukes on the screen and TELLS you something about "blah blah sent before header output" or something to that effect. What do you guys all do? I also created a poll here http://www.rapidpoll.net/arc1opy -----Original Message----- From: Co-worker To: Daevid Vincent Actually, Zend states that you should omit the final ?> on include pages. There is no harm in the action, and it prevents you from accidentally adding white space after the tag which will break the code. http://framework.zend.com/manual/en/coding-standard.php-file-formatting.htm l -----Original Message----- From: Daevid Vincent To: Co-worker Please DO include the final ?> I noticed on several of your files that you have purposely omitted it. Yes, I know the files work without them, but it makes things easier to see the pairings for matching <?php . Plus it keeps things consistent and I'm not a big fan of "special cases" as this is, especially if it's a bad habit to get into since in all other cases it's required except this one "lazy" one. If you are concerned about white space sending in a header or something, well then just make sure there isn't any. I've had no problems and it makes you a more careful coder. Thanks, Daevid.