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Strings in PHP

Escape sequences are used in PHP strings to represent special characters like newlines, tabs, and quotes. Common escape sequences include \n for newlines, \t for tabs, \' to escape single quotes, and \" to escape double quotes. While escape sequences work in PHP strings, HTML ignores newline and carriage return characters, so the nl2br function can be used to convert newlines to HTML line breaks when displaying strings. PHP supports single-quoted, double-quoted, heredoc, and newdoc syntax for defining strings, with the main differences being that single-quoted strings don't interpret escape sequences while heredoc is double-quoted and newdoc is single-quoted.

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23 views

Strings in PHP

Escape sequences are used in PHP strings to represent special characters like newlines, tabs, and quotes. Common escape sequences include \n for newlines, \t for tabs, \' to escape single quotes, and \" to escape double quotes. While escape sequences work in PHP strings, HTML ignores newline and carriage return characters, so the nl2br function can be used to convert newlines to HTML line breaks when displaying strings. PHP supports single-quoted, double-quoted, heredoc, and newdoc syntax for defining strings, with the main differences being that single-quoted strings don't interpret escape sequences while heredoc is double-quoted and newdoc is single-quoted.

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Whatever
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© © All Rights Reserved
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Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Deep Dive in PHP

Farrukh Ehsan
Escape Sequence Characters
• Escape sequences are used for escaping a character during the string parsing.
• It is also used for giving special meaning to represent line breaks, tabs, alert and more.
Things you already know !
• Escape sequences are started with the escaping character backslash (\) followed by the
character which may be an alphanumeric or a special character.
• If it is an alphanumeric character, it gives special meaning to represent the line breaks \n,
carriage return \r and more.
Widely used Escape Sequences in PHP
• \’ – To escape ‘ within single quoted string.
• \” – To escape “ within double quoted string.
• \\ – To escape the backslash.
• \$ – To escape $.
• \n – To add line breaks between string.
• \t – To add tab space.
• \r – For carriage return.
•  Control character or mechanism used to reset a device's position to the beginning of a
line of text.
Problem !
• \n and other similar escape sequences are not part of HTML.
• HTML ignores carriage return and linefeed characters, treating them as whitespaces.
• If you want to use display a string formatted with \n you can use nl2br to convert it
Example
Strings in PHP
• PHP string is a sequence of characters i.e., used to store and manipulate text.
• There are 4 ways to specify a string in PHP.
1. single quoted
2. double quoted
3. heredoc syntax
4. newdoc syntax (since PHP 5.3)
Single Quoted
• We can create a string in PHP by enclosing the text in a single-quote. It is the easiest way
to specify string in PHP.
• For specifying a literal single quote, escape it with a backslash (\) and to specify a literal
backslash (\) use double backslash (\\).
Single Quote | Important Points
• We can store multiple
• line text
• special characters
• escape sequences
in a single-quoted PHP string.
Single Quote | Example
Double Quoted
• In PHP, we can specify string through enclosing text within double
quote also.
Heredoc
• In Heredoc syntax, an identifier is provided after this heredoc <<< operator, and
immediately a new line is started to write any text. To close the quotation, the string
follows itself and then again that same identifier is provided. 
• That closing identifier must begin from the new line without any whitespace or tab.
• Naming Rules For Identifier
• The identifier should follow the naming rule that it must contain only alphanumeric
characters and underscores, and must start with an underscore or a non-digit character.
Heredoc | Example
Newdoc | String
• It is also identified with three less than symbols <<< followed by an identifier. But here
identifier is enclosed in single-quote, e.g. <<<'EXP'. Newdoc follows the same rule as
heredocs.
• The difference between newdoc and heredoc is that - Newdoc is a single-quoted
string whereas heredoc is a double-quoted string.

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