php - using shorter tag won't work

Question

I'm reading the book "PHP for absolute beginners" and I got to the part which says that this peace of php code:

<?='Weird'?>

yields the text inside quotes.

But this isn't the case for me and I'm not sure why.

Anyone knows the problem?

I'm using Apache/mySQL (XAMPP) and Eclipse.

Answer 1

There is a server config to enable or disable short tags. http://php.net/manual/en/ini.core.php

tag is short_open_tag and is located in the php.ini file

Answer 2

It's recommended that you do not use short tags. :)

They're usually disabled.

Answer 3

<?= ... ?> is a shorthand for <?php echo ... ?>. As other answers mentioned, they need to be enabled through the short_open_tag ini directive (which will also enable <? ... ?> as a shorthand for <?php ... ?>. Alternately, you can enable it locally within your script by using ini_set.

Answer 4

Please open php.ini and change short_open_tag to on.