Bite of PHP: Heredoc vs. Nowdoc

Created: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 07:42:00 GMT

Time to read: 1 minute

Heredoc

Heredoc will define a string of text in a what-you-see-is-what-you-mean type of format. So, if you want to echo out structured text, like so:

I think that I
    Shall never pay
As much as I
    Have for 2015-04-23

You would put it in a heredoc like this:

$today = date('Y-m-d');
$poem = <<<HTML
I think that I
    Shall never pay
As much as I
    Have for $today
HTML;

echo $poem;

output:

I think that I
    Shall never pay
As much as I
    Have for 2015-04-23

Notice that heredoc can behave like a template and parse any PHP contained within.

Test it out on 3v4l.org.

Nowdoc

Nowdoc will define a string of text in a what-you-see-is-what-you-get type of format. So, if you want to show the above example EXACTLY as written, put it in a nowdoc block.

$today = date('Y-m-d');
$poem = <<<'HTML'
I think that I
    Shall never pay
As much as I
    Have for $today
HTML;

echo $poem;

output:

I think that I
    Shall never pay
As much as I
    Have for $today

Test it out on 3v4l.org.

Notice that the only difference between the heredoc block and the nowdoc block is that the nowdoc block's name is enclosed within single-quotes. For me, the single-quotes makes it easy to remember which block is literal and which block is rendered, just like the difference between echoing single-quotes and double-quotes.

Colophon

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