Basic PHP Syntax

A PHP scripting block always starts with < ?php and ends with ? >. A PHP scripting block can be placed anywhere in the document.
On servers with shorthand support enabled you can start a scripting block with < ? and end with ? >.
For maximum compatibility, we recommend that you use the standard form < ?php rather than the shorthand form.
< ?php
? >
A PHP file normally contains HTML tags, just like an HTML file, and some PHP scripting code.
Below, we have an example of a simple PHP script which sends the text "Hello World" to the browser:
< html >
< body >

< ?php
echo "Hello World";
? >

< /body >
< /html >
Each code line in PHP must end with a semicolon. The semicolon is a separator and is used to distinguish one set of instructions from another.
There are two basic statements to output text with PHP: echo and print. In the example above we have used the echo statement to output the text "Hello World".
Note: The file must have a .php extension. If the file has a .html extension, the PHP code will not be executed.