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does PHP Version 5.3.2 work without <?php woth with <?

Answer 1

+2 A:

Short tags are a discouraged feature of PHP. You should convert all <? to <?php, because as of PHP 6.0, they will be deprecated. (This is partially to better support XML documents, which have a tag that starts with <?)

BTW, you can turn them on in your configuration.

Chacha102 2010-05-18 20:03:57

Answer 2

+10 A:

This is not down to the PHP version, but depends on the short_open_tag php.ini setting.

You can change the ini setting to "1", but the use of short open tags is generally discouraged these days.

Pekka 2010-05-18 20:04:49

It's mostly discouraged for code that would be under your control (forever). The server needs to have the short open tag enabled, otherwise it won't work. Starting with PHP6 the tag will be _disabled_ by default. So if you build a project for a company and you have no idea what the settings on their server will be, it's best to use the default `<?php` and not take a risk. But when your building this for yourself or for your own company and you know that you'll be controlling the severs on which it runs, there no reason not to use it. It does has it advantages, depending on your coding style.

Alec 2010-05-18 21:39:12

@Alec good points. Whether or not to use short open tags is subject to fiercest discussion :) There are those who condemn it altogether, and those who like the `<?=$varname;?>` notation. I personally still have a lot of code with short open tags, but strive to move to `<?php` as soon as possible.

Pekka 2010-05-18 21:47:31

@Alec, you are right, but even if you know that you'll have control on the server configuration, you don't know how long... Maybe you'll get hired somewhere else, and people after you could not know about your use of short_open_tags

Boris Guéry 2010-05-19 12:56:30

Answer 3

A:

Hello air,

There is a directive in your php.ini file called "short_open_tag". This is what allows you to use the shorthand or not. They should not be used anymore though, so its better if you update all tags to the new format.

Metropolis

Metropolis 2010-05-18 20:05:57

Answer 4

A:

Hi, the following code snippet helped me convert all short tags to proper PHP tags, hope it helps you too:

http://mirmodynamics.com/post/2009/01/29/Replacing-short-tags-with-proper-PHP-tags

Geoffrey Bachelet 2010-05-19 08:37:26

Answer 5

A:

Does anyone know why it was disabled at all? There is usually some vague mention of incompatibility to XML editors or something. But I've never seen a factual/common real world scenario where <?= caused problems.

Well yes, xmllint doesn't like it. But who sends PHP scripts through an XML parser anyway?

mario 2010-05-19 12:53:15

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