Posted by Jon Slaughter on 05/28/07 17:05

"Michael" <MichaelDMcDonnell@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1180370371.580860.72150@x35g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
> On May 28, 9:24 am, Darko <darko.maksimo...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> 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.
>
> =====================
> I guess I'm still missing the point. Once the browser interpreter sees
> the <?php, it assumes that all text to follow is php code until the
> terminating token ?> is seen. Now if the include function is called
> within the <?php ... ?>, the interpreter still assumes that any text
> it sees is PHP. So again, I don't understand why the include text
> needs to bracket its code in <?php ...?>. What am I missing here?
> Thanks, MDM.
>

Thats your problem... php has nothing to do with the browser. Its a server
side scripting language and independent of the client.

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