PHP 7.0.6 Released

    print

    (PHP 4, PHP 5, PHP 7)

    print — Output a string

    Description

    int print ( string $arg )

    Outputs arg.

    print is not actually a real function (it is a language construct) so you are not required to use parentheses with its argument list.

    Parameters

    arg

    The input data.

    Return Values

    Returns 1, always.

    Examples

    Example #1 print examples

    <?php
    print("Hello World");

    print     "print() also works without parentheses.";

    print     "This spans
    multiple lines. The newlines will be
    output as well"    ;

    print     "This spans\nmultiple lines. The newlines will be\noutput as well.";

    print     "escaping characters is done \"Like this\".";

    // You can use variables inside a print statement
    $foo = "foobar";
    $bar = "barbaz";

    print     "foo is $foo"; // foo is foobar

    // You can also use arrays
    $bar = array("value" => "foo");

    print     "this is {$bar['value']} !"; // this is foo !

    // Using single quotes will print the variable name, not the value
    print 'foo is $foo'; // foo is $foo

    // If you are not using any other characters, you can just print variables
    print $foo;          // foobar

    print <<<END
    This uses the "here document" syntax to output
    multiple lines with     $variable interpolation. Note
    that the here document terminator must appear on a
    line with just a semicolon no extra whitespace!
    END;
    ?>

    Notes

    Note: Because this is a language construct and not a function, it cannot be called using variable functions.

    See Also

    User Contributed Notes

    user at example dot net
    7 years ago
    Be careful when using print. Since print is a language construct and not a function, the parentheses around the argument is not required.
    In fact, using parentheses can cause confusion with the syntax of a function and SHOULD be omited.

    Most would expect the following behavior:
    <?php
            if (print("foo") && print("bar")) {
                // "foo" and "bar" had been printed
            }
    ?>

    But since the parenthesis around the argument are not required, they are interpretet as part of the argument.
    This means that the argument of the first print is

        ("foo") && print("bar")

    and the argument of the second print is just

        ("bar")

    For the expected behavior of the first example, you need to write:
    <?php
            if ((print "foo") && (print "bar")) {
                // "foo" and "bar" had been printed
            }
    ?>
    danielxmorris @ gmail dotcom
    7 years ago
    I wrote a println function that determines whether a \n or a <br /> should be appended to the line depending on whether it's being executed in a shell or a browser window.  People have probably thought of this before but I thought I'd post it anyway - it may help a couple of people.

    <?php
    function println ($string_message) {
            $_SERVER['SERVER_PROTOCOL'] ? print "$string_message<br />" : print "$string_message\n";
    }
    ?>

    Examples:

    Running in a browser:

    <?php println ("Hello, world!"); ?>
    Output: Hello, world!<br />

    Running in a shell:

    <?php println ("Hello, world!"); ?>
    Output: Hello, world!\n
    phpnet at i3x171um dot com
    9 years ago
    I have written a script to benchmark the several methods of outputting data in PHP: via single quotes, double quotes, heredoc, and printf. The script constructs a paragraph of text with each method. It performs this construction 10,000 times, then records how long it took. In total, it prints 160,000 times and records 16 timings. Here are the raw results.

    Outputted straight to browser--

    Single quotes: 2,813 ms
    ...with concatenation: 1,179 ms
    Double quotes: 5,180 ms
    ...with concatenation: 3,937 ms
    heredoc: 7,300 ms
    ...with concatenation: 6,288 ms
    printf: 9,527 ms
    ...with concatenation: 8,564 ms

    Outputted to the output buffer--

    Single quotes: 8 ms
    ...with concatenation: 38 ms
    Double quotes: 8 ms
    ...with concatenation: 47 ms
    heredoc: 17 ms
    ...with concatenation: 49 ms
    printf: 54 ms
    ...with concatenation: 52 ms

    A nice graph of the script's output can be found here:
    http://i3x171um.com/output_benchmarks/ob.gif

    So what should you choose to print your text? I found several things out writing this.

    First, it should be noted that the print and echo keywords are interchangeable, performance-wise. The timings show that one is probably an alias for the other. So use whichever you feel most comfortable with.

    Second, if you've ever wondered which was better, the definitive answer is single quotes. Single quotes are at least four times faster in any situation. Double quotes, while more convenient, do pose a debatably significant performance issue when outputting massive amounts of data.

    Third, stay away from heredoc, and absolutely stay away from [s]printf. They're slow, and the alternatives are there.

    The source of my script can be found here:
    http://i3x171um.com/output_benchmarks/ob.txt

    DO NOT RUN THE SCRIPT ON THE INTERNET! Run it instead from localhost. The script outputs ~45 megabytes of text in an html comment at the top of the page by default. Expect the benchmark to take ~45 seconds. If this is too long, you can change the amount of iterations to a lower number (the results scale accurately down to about 1,000 iterations).
    jon at tap dot net
    10 years ago
    I have a small utility run from the command line that processes a potentially huge list of files. As it can take hours to complete, I stuck a 

    print '.';

    statement in the body of the main loop to prove that something was  happening.

    For reasons unknown to me, the utiliity suddenly started buffering the output such that it printed nothing until completion, defeating the purpose of the running monitor. Adding flush() statements did nothing. The problem was solved by using

    fputs(STDOUT, '.');

    but I have no idea why.
    jon
    8 years ago
    the FAQTs article can be found archived at http://web.archive.org/web/20060601063513/http
    ://www.faqts.com/knowledge_base/view.phtml/aid/1/fid/40

    (url split to get past the line-length limitation)
    Luke Wenke
    2 years ago
    "print is not actually a real function (it is a language construct) so you are not required to use parentheses with its argument list."

    I don't think it has an "argument list" because the following gives a syntax error:

    print (1, 2);

    Here is an example of how the brackets work with print:

    print ((1) + (2)) + (3);

    Unlike a function it doesn't just use the first brackets... it prints "9".
    Chris Watson
    6 years ago
    mvpetrovich of 2007 could just use single quotes as his string delimiters (see the example in the current documentation).
    It's not ALWAYS appropriate, but generally it is best (the Zend Framework coding standards have a good take on this). It yields a number of interesting benefits:
    1: Nobody will be tempted to write functions to replace backticks or other characters with double quotes. Such functions may cause a (negligible) loss of efficiency, and maybe other undesired effects.
    2: You will be able to use double quotes without escaping. This is recommended (although not required) for HTML and XML attributes, as well as quoted text.
    3: The script will hit the browser very slightly slightly faster since PHP doesn't have to scan through the string looking for variables, escaped characters, curly braces or other things.
    4: Your code gets ten times easier to read. (as mvpetrovich pointed out)

    If, in spite of these four excellent benefits, you really MUST still use double quotes to delimit boring old string constants (and seriously, why would you?), you could use the slightly less favourable single quotes as delimiters for most markup languages.
    HTML served as HTML will even let you lay out unquoted attributes (yuck).

    It should also be noted though that if you are just printing bare strings, you may as well shut off the php parser. The quickest way to send a string is to write it as plain text, OUTSIDE of the php tags. This will also make your code look excellent in a lot of syntax highlighters.

    There are few disadvantages to doing this, if any. Output buffering still works. All your classes and objects and includes remain in place. Your script runs faster. World peace is obtained.
    user at example dot net
    7 years ago
    Be careful when using print. Since print is a language construct and not a function, the parentheses around the argument is not required.
    In fact, using parentheses can cause confusion with the syntax of a function and SHOULD be omited.

    Most would expect the following behavior:
    <?php
            if (print("foo") && print("bar")) {
                // "foo" and "bar" have been printed
            }
    ?>

    But since the parenthesis around the argument are not required, they are interpretet as part of the argument.
    This means that the argument of the first print is

        ("foo") && print("bar")

    and the argument of the second print is just

        ("bar")

    For the expected behavior of the first example, you need to write:
    <?php
            if ((print "foo") && (print "bar")) {
                // "foo" and "bar" have been printed
            }
    ?>
    http://www.danielxmorris.com
    7 years ago
    An update to the println function I wrote below, this is a more efficient, correct and returns a value (1, always; (print)).

    <?php

            function println($string_message = '') {
            return isset(    $_SERVER['SERVER_PROTOCOL']) ? print "$string_message<br />" . PHP_EOL:
              print     $string_message . PHP_EOL;
        }

    ?>
    ejallison at gmail dot com
    10 years ago
    This is a simple function for printing debug comments that I didn't think of for a long time. Maybe it'll serve you good too.

    <?php

    function printd($str) {
      if (    $debug) { echo $str; }
    }

    // ...

    if ($valueCalculatedEarlierInTheScript == 3) {
          doSomethingWithNoOutput();
          printd("doSomethingWithNoOutput() has executed.");
    }

    ?>

    It's mostly just to make sure everything is running without having to go through everything and put in echo "Step #whatever has executed" whenever something mysterious isn't working.
    james-web at and dot org
    10 years ago
    Note that if you want to dump the value of a variable, you want to use print_r(), var_dump() or var_export().
    mvpetrovich
    9 years ago
    I grew quite tired of backslashes, and wrote these routines. It uses the back single quote as a substitute for double quotes within a statement.  It made my code much more readable.  It is a little easier than using a "here document."  I also found I make a few less typing errors.

    <?php

    function qq($text) {return str_replace('`','"',$text); }
    function     printq($text) { print qq($text); }
    function     printqn($text) { print qq($text)."\n"; }

    //example - before

    echo "<a href=\"#\" class=\"stdbutton\" style=\"float:left;\" onclick=\"myfunction(); return false;\">My Link</a>\n";

    //becomes - with printqn function

    printqn("<a href=`#` class=`stdbutton` style=`float:left;` onclick=`myfunction(); return false;`>My Link</a>");

    ?>
    gem at rellim dot com
    11 years ago
    HERE Documents can reference arrays as long as you enclose
    the vars in {}.

    Like this:

    <?php

    $line     = array( 'title' => "Hello", 'date' => 'Today');

    echo <<<EOT
    Title: {$line['title']}
    Date:     {$line['date']}
    EOT;

    ?>

    Run this and get
    Title: Hello
    Date: Today

    More info here, scroll down to "heredoc syntax":
    http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.types.string.php
    aflavio at gmail dot com
    5 years ago
    Check this statement:

    echo 3 . print(2) . print(4) . 5 . 'c' . print(6) . print(7). 'b' .print(8) . 'a';

    It's will always output starting from the right to the left.

    Thus we have:

    8a                              //1o print
    7b18a                        //2o print
    617b18a                    //3o print
    8a7b16145c1             //4o print

    8a7b16145c12131     //Final output

    That's it.
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