How are echo and print different in PHP?

Question

Is there any major and fundamental difference between these two functions in PHP?

Answer 1

The PHP manual pages for print and echo link to this document.

Answer 2

From: http://www.faqts.com/knowledge_base/view.phtml/aid/1/fid/40

1. Speed. There is a difference between the two, but speed-wise it should be irrelevant which one you use. echo is marginally faster since it doesn't set a return value if you really want to get down to the nitty gritty.

2. Expression. print() behaves like a function in that you can do: $ret = print "Hello World"; And $ret will be 1. That means that print can be used as part of a more complex expression where echo cannot. An example from the PHP Manual:

   $b ? print "true" : print "false";

print is also part of the precedence table which it needs to be if it is to be used within a complex expression. It is just about at the bottom of the precedence list though. Only "," AND, OR and XOR are lower.

1. Parameter(s). The grammar is: echo expression [, expression[, expression] ... ] But echo ( expression, expression ) is not valid. This would be valid: echo ("howdy"),("partner"); the same as: echo "howdy","partner"; (Putting the brackets in that simple example serves no purpose since there is no operator precedence issue with a single term like that.)

So, echo without parentheses can take multiple parameters, which get concatenated:

   echo  "and a ", 1, 2, 3;   // comma-separated without parentheses
   echo ("and a 123");        // just one parameter with parentheses

print() can only take one parameter:

   print ("and a 123");
   print  "and a 123";

Answer 3

http://www.faqts.com/knowledge_base/view.phtml/aid/1/fid/40

Answer 4

As the PHP.net manual suggests, take a read of this discussion.

One major difference is that echo can take multiple parameters to output. E.g.:

echo('foo', 'bar');
print('foo', 'bar'); //Fatal error

If you're looking to evaluate the outcome of an output statement (as below) use print. If not, use echo.

$res = print('test');
var_dump($res); //bool(true)

Answer 5

They are:

• print only takes one parameter, while echo can have multiple parameters.
• print returns a value (1), so can be used as a function.
• echo is slightly faster.

Answer 6

To add to the answers above, while print can only take one parameter, it will allow for concatenation of multiple values, ie:

$count = 5;

print "This is " . $count . " values in " . $count/5 . " parameter";

This is 5 values in 1 parameter

Answer 7

I think print() is slower than echo.

I like to use print() only for situations like:

 echo 'Doing some stuff... ';
 foo() and print("ok.\n") or print("error: " . getError() . ".\n");