Posted by Darko on 05/28/07 16:24

On May 28, 6:09 pm, "Jon Slaughter" <Jon_Slaugh...@Hotmail.com> wrote:
> "Michael" <MichaelDMcDonn...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>
> news:1180368213.786423.310320@z28g2000prd.googlegroups.com...
>
> > Since the include function is called from within a PHP script, why
> > does the included file have to identify itself as a PHP again by
> > enclosing its code in <?php> ... <?>
>
> > One would assume that the PHP interpreter works like any other, that
> > is, it first expands all the include files, and then parses the
> > resulting text. Can anyone help with an explanation?
It's not supposed to be bracketed by <?php> and <?>, but by <?php
and ?
>. That's not necessary, though. You have to put those symbols into

your require-d file if you want it to be understood like php code, but
if you don't, it will be understood as raw output. Just like any other
php file:
<?php
if ( $x ) {
?>
some output here
some output here
some output here
<?php
} else {
?>
some other output here
some other output here
some other output here
<?php
}
?>

As for the require-d file, the same counts - if you didn't put <?php
and ?> surrounding the contents of the file, they would be understood
as ordinary output, not php code (which, of course, can be exactly
what we wanted).

>
> Because a php can contain other text such as html... the parser is only
> signaled to work on the block that is inside a the php tag...
>
> you ever wonder why <? php ?> looks like an html tag? cause it is!
I wouldn't go that far to say <?php and ?> are html tags, although
they do resemble them having lt and gt chars. Actually, the <? and ?>
are part of xml processing instruction declaration syntax, so when we
say "<?php" we say "give the following contents to php", and when we
say "?>", we actually say "those contents end here". So, php code is
actually organized as xml document, and html out of <?php ?>
instructions perfectly fits in that concept, being itself a subset of
xml, although older than xml.

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