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PHP

Posted by drewbumpas
drewbumpas
5,529 Points

Confused by code structure

I'm not completely understanding the following code listed below. My confusion starts at the end of the first line. Why does the "{" symbol come before the closing PHP tag "?>" ? The PHP tags also enclose the "}" symbol on the third line which I also don't understand.

When I look at the first line, I would think that the curly brace symbol would start outside of the closing PHP tag.

<?php if (isset($_GET["status"]) AND $_GET["status"] == "thanks") { ?>
                <p>Thanks for the email! I&rsquo;ll be in touch shortly.</p>
            <?php } else { ?>

I hope this makes sense. The code can be found in contact.php from the Build a Simple PHP Application lesson.

4 Answers

dhillonsh
dhillonsh
4,745 Points

If this example were to be made only with PHP, no HTML, it would look like this:

<?php 
if (isset($_GET["status"]) AND $_GET["status"] == "thanks") {
        echo "<p>Thanks for the email! I&rsquo;ll be in touch shortly.</p>"
} else {}
?>

What this is saying is if $_GET['status'] equals 'thanks', then show the person "Thanks for the email...". This is why there is the open curly bracket before the message and a closing one after.

drewbumpas
drewbumpas
5,529 Points
drewbumpas
drewbumpas
5,529 Points

Thank you! Now I understand. Are both ways acceptable to write or is one method preferred over the other? The way your wrote it makes much more sense to me structurally.

dhillonsh
dhillonsh
4,745 Points
dhillonsh
dhillonsh
4,745 Points

No problem. I believe TreeHouse may force you to write it the way you had it, although I'm not quite sure. I personally dislike doing it the way they have it setup, just makes matters more confusing.

Giovanni CELESTE
Giovanni CELESTE
20,961 Points
Giovanni CELESTE
Giovanni CELESTE
20,961 Points

I may be wrong, but I think the reason for mixing PHP and HTML is the semantic of the code. HTML is used only for the view when PHP is used only for the controller (hope it doesn't confuse you). But at first (and still now), I think it's more intuitive to wrap it all in PHP (and more readable).

But as long as it works well, you can do as you want. They recommend to mix them, it's a more strict approach, probably best used for large projects with different technologies (switch PHP with Ruby, without touching HTML, you see).

I'm a beginner, just my comprehension of the courses. Hope it makes sense. Sorry for my english, french guy :)