Echo vs Print

In the last 10 years or so, web developing has become one of the world�s fastest growing industries. It is the creation of websites for the Internet and involves a lot of procedures like web designing, web content creation, scripting, security configuration, the development of ecommerce, and the markup and coding of texts, applications, and other network services.

One web development language that has done a lot for web developers is PHP. Although it is very complex, learning it helps them in making other web applications. In outputting something with PHP or other programming language, a language construct is needed.

A language construct is a set of structures that is part of a program formed to express an operation. Print and echo are both language constructs that are used to show information on the computer screen.

They both have the same functions but have different procedures that result to the same output.

Print

Print is a language construct that can take multiple expressions and it is the language construct that older programmers prefer to use because it is the command used in the early years of computer programming.

It behaves as a function in its ability to return an integer value. It can be enclosed in brackets which are not used by all PHP programmers. For conditional constructs, print is more suitable to use because it can be used in more complex expressions.

It is slower to use though and can only take one parameter. It takes more system resources to use which is why most programmers prefer to use echo.

Echo

Echo does not behave like a function and must not be used in the context of a function. It does not use brackets or parentheses which are considered unnecessary by most programmers today. It has a shorter syntax where an equal sign immediately follows the opening tag making it easier to type.

It works faster and does not return any integer values which mean that it produces an output in lesser time. It is not suitable for conditional construct and complex expressions which evaluates computations as true or false.

Anyone can use any of the two language constructs depending on his needs and preference. The outcome will be the same even if they require different procedures. The difference is very small though to make any significant impact on their uses so choosing between the two depends largely on the user.

Summary

1. Print behaves like a function while echo does not.
2. Print is most often used by older programmers who are used to using it during the early years of programming while echo is preferred by most modern programmers.
3. Print uses brackets or parenthesis while echo does not because they are considered unnecessary.
4. Echo works faster that print.
5. Echo does not return an integer value like print does.
6. Print is suitable to use for conditional constructs and more complex expressions while echo is not.
7. Echo can take multiple parameters while print can only take a single parameter.

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