Is there any difference between 'print' and 'echo' in PHP? [duplicate]

Question

Possible Duplicate:
How are echo and print different in PHP?

UPDATE :

I found to my relief an exact duplicate (it wasn't showing up when I typed this question at first, I found it with ... google): Please vote with me to close this question, because it's tiring, go hunt that other poor guy a bit ;-)

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Is there any difference between print and echo in PHP? If so, which should I use and when? If not, why are there two keywords?

UPDATE :

At the downvoters : please read the SO faq. SO was setup also to capture googleable questions. so you shouldn't downvote for that, this question is a valid question, answered on a lot of places and now on SO too.

Of course you can downvote for another reason, but please leave a comment in the lines of -1 : downvoted for .. , cause for now, I'm not understanding the downvotes.

Answer 1

From this link, suggested by the PHP manual entry for the echo() function:

1. Speed. There is a difference between the two, but speed-wise it should be irrelevant which one you use. echo is marginally faster since it doesn't set a return value if you really want to get down to the nitty gritty.

2. Expression. print() behaves like a function in that you can do: $ret = print "Hello World"; And $ret will be

3. That means that print can be used as part of a more complex expression where echo cannot. An example from the PHP Manual:

   $b ? print "true" : print "false";

print is also part of the precedence table which it needs to be if it is to be used within a complex expression. It is just about at the bottom of the precedence list though. Only "," AND, OR and XOR are lower.

3. Parameter(s). The grammar is: echo expression [, expression[, expression] ... ] But echo ( expression, expression ) is not valid. This would be valid: echo ("howdy"),("partner"); the same as: echo "howdy","partner";
   (Putting the brackets in that simple example serves no purpose since there is no operator precedence issue with a single term like that.)

So, echo without parentheses can take multiple parameters, which get concatenated:

echo "and a ", 1, 2, 3; // comma-separated without parentheses
echo ("and a 123"); // just one parameter with parentheses

print() can only take one parameter:

print ("and a 123"); print "and a 123";

Answer 2

some say echo is slightly faster than print since it has no return value. though here is someone who doesn't think the speed difference matters much... http://fabien.potencier.org/article/8/print-vs-echo-which-one-is-faster

Answer 3

the answer is in the docs.

Answer 4

print returns, echo does not.

And you are right, totally googleable.