Multiple PHP tags

Question

This is just a general PHP question. Does it help or hurt to have multiple <?php CODE ?> in my scripts?

I was just looking at some of my scripts and noticed that some of them have 3-4 in it. Dont know if this is causing any slowness on my site or not :)

Answer 1

No, it's not causing any slowness or problems. It's perfectly common to have dozens or hundreds of separate <?php ?> blocks in templates.

Answer 2

I guess you mean multiple PHP opening & closing tags.

Like in cases you want to echo a large block of HTML markup, it is always better to close the php tag ?> and then start it again when required. For example:

<?php
if($ok) {
    ?> A large
    block
    HTML MarkUp text
 <?php
} //End of if($ok)
?>

It actually improves the speed as the control will not parse all of the above large block and simply skip to the next < ? php tag or If end point, as compared to echoing all these lines.