php e() and h() functions?

Question

I and lately I'm seeing h() and e() functions in PHP. I have googled them, but they are so short that results don't give any idea of what they are. I got results like exponential or math related functions. For example:

<td><?php echo h($room['Room']['message']) ?></td> 

Does anyone have an idea? or maybe they are not called functions? (I think I read about that very long ago, but I can remember its real name)

ADDED:

Thanks, for the replies. I am using CakePHP and also found an e() example:

<?php e($time->niceShort($question['Question'] ['created'])) ?> 

If they were escaping somehow strings I think it would make sense, since I always see them right next the "echo"

I still don't know what they are ;(

Answer 1

As several readers have said, these are CakePHP-specific short-cuts. You can find them in the API docs at: here (for CakePHP 2.x)

I think I read that some of these are going to be removed in 1.3, personally I never used e() as typing echo really doesn't take that much longer :)

edit: e() is deprecated in 1.3 and no longer available in 2.0 see here

Answer 2

It looks like it might be CakePHP.

See e()

e (mixed $data)

Convenience wrapper for echo().

This has been Deprecated and will be removed in 2.0 version. Use echo() instead.

See h()

h (string $text, string $charset = null)

Convenience wrapper for htmlspecialchars().