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1.6 PHP Echo / Print

With PHP, there are two basic ways to get output: echo and print.
In this tutorial we use echo or print in almost every example. So, this chapter contains a little more info about those two output statements.

PHP echo and print Statements

echo and print are more or less the same. They are both used to output data to the screen.
The differences are small: echo has no return value while print has a return value of 1 so it can be used in expressions. echo can take multiple parameters (although such usage is rare) while print can take one argument. echo is marginally faster than print.

The PHP echo Statement

The echo statement can be used with or without parentheses: echo or echo().

Display Text

The following example shows how to output text with the echo command (notice that the text can contain HTML markup):

Example 1: The PHP echo Statement part 1

<?php
echo "<h2>PHP is Fun!</h2>";
echo "<p>Hello world!<br>";
echo "I'm about to learn PHP!<br>";
echo "This ", "string ", "was ", "made ", "with multiple parameters.</p>";
?>

Display Variables

The following example shows how to output text and variables with the echo statement:

Example 2: The PHP echo Statement part 2

<?php
$txt1 = "Learn PHP";
$txt2 = "W3Schools.com";
$x = 5;
$y = 4;

echo "<h2>" . $txt1 . "</h2>";
echo "<p>Study PHP at " . $txt2 . "<br>";
echo $x + $y "</p>";
?>

The PHP print Statement

The print statement can be used with or without parentheses: print or print().

Display Text

The following example shows how to output text with the print command (notice that the text can contain HTML markup):

Example 3: The PHP print Statement part 1

<?php
print "<h2>PHP is Fun!</h2>";
print "Hello world!<br>";
print "I'm about to learn PHP!";
?>

Display Variables

The following example shows how to output text and variables with the print statement:

Example 4: The PHP print Statement part 2

<?php
$txt1 = "Learn PHP";
$txt2 = "W3Schools.com";
$x = 5;
$y = 4;

print "<h2>" . $txt1 . "</h2>";
print "Study PHP at " . $txt2 . "<br>";
print $x + $y;
?>

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Module 1. Introduction to PHP

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Example files created in this module:
My first PHP page - Hello World PHP Case Sensitivity - Hello World PHP Case Sensitivity - Color World Syntax for single-line comments Syntax for multiple-line comments: Using comments to leave out parts of the code: Declaring PHP Variables Output Variables part 1 Output Variables part 2 Output Variables part 3 Variable with global scope: Variable with local scope: PHP The global Keyword part 1 PHP The global Keyword part 2 PHP The static Keyword The PHP echo Statement part 1 The PHP echo Statement part 2 The PHP print Statement part 1 The PHP print Statement part 2