Print newline in PHP in single quotes

Question

Hey all,

I try to use single quotes as much as possible and I've noticed that I can't use \n in single quotes. I know I can just enter a newline literally by pressing return, but that screws up the indentation of my code.. Is there some ASCII character or something that I can type that will produce newline when I'm using single quotes?

Thanks! Matt Mueller

Answer 1

No, because single-quotes even inhibit hex code replacement.

echo 'Hello, world!' . "\n";

Answer 2

If you are echoing to a browser, you can use <br/> with your statement:

echo 'Will print a newline<br/>';
echo 'But this wont!';

Answer 3

You may want to consider using <<<

e.g.

<<<VARIABLE
this is some
random text
that I'm typing 
here and I will end it with the 
same word I started it with
VARIABLE

More info at: http://php.net/manual/en/language.types.string.php

Btw - Some Coding environments don't know how to handle the above syntax.

Answer 4

No, according to documentation, PHP recognize no special symbol in single quotes. And there is no single reason to use single quotes as much as possible

Answer 5

The only escape sequence you can use in single quotes is for the single quote itself.

$foo = 'That\'s great';

The only way you could insert a new line into a string created with single quotes is to insert a literal newline

$bar = 'That\'s
cheating';

Answer 6

FYI it is possible to get newlines into strings without double quotes:

printf('Please%1$sgive%1$sme%1$snewlines%1$s', PHP_EOL);

Which may be useful If your irrational fear of double quotes knows no bounds. Though I fear this cure may be worse than the disease.

Answer 7

echo 'hollow world' . PHP_EOL ;

Then it is OS independent too.