From phil.ashby@bt.com Fri Feb  5 10:04:32 2010
From: phil.ashby@bt.com
To: main@lists.alug.org.uk
Subject:
 Re: [ALUG] HTML embedded scripting, is it really this much of a kludge?
Date: Fri, 05 Feb 2010 10:04:30 +0000
Message-ID: <F768937156688640A6D557E9392A32AA01021CAAD4FA@RDW083V001RVA1.domain1.systemhost.net>
In-Reply-To: <mailman.2469.1265325584.3078.main@lists.alug.org.uk>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="===============6013623366001393077=="

--===============6013623366001393077==
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

Chris asked:
> So where is this <?php syntax defined?  Is it part of HTML, is it a
> bodge added by apache or what is it?  That's really what I was asking,
> I (sort of) know the difference between server side and client side
> stuff (I think I did even say something about <SCRIPT> being client
> side) and <SCRIPT> is at least 'proper' HTML.

It's defined in the PHP specification, so it must be implemented by any PHP e=
nabled server (be that Apache, IIS, Lighttpd, etc.), and since it never reach=
es the browser it's not part of the 'proper' HTML or subject to that specific=
ation. Here's the manual ref:

http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.basic-syntax.phpmode.php

Other server-side scripting languages use similar techniques, eg:

ASP: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/k33801s3.aspx
JSP: http://java.sun.com/products/jsp/syntax/2.0/syntaxref20.html
Cold fusion: http://www.opencfml.org/dashboard.action

Such syntax abuse all started with server-side includes back in the 90's:

http://hoohoo.ncsa.illinois.edu/docs/tutorials/includes.html

HTH,
Phil.

--===============6013623366001393077==--