We had the same discussion. I brought it up last time. There were patch for "<?xml" just like yours.
The outcome was modified manual page that discourages use of short tag for portable script. http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.basic-syntax.php Current php.ini-dist has ========== ; Allow the <? tag. Otherwise, only <?php and <script> tags are recognized. short_open_tag = On ========== Adding appropriate comment is better than adding token to language. i.e. compatibility between new and old PHP. The best way to go is discourage use of short tag whenever possible, change default few years later, IMHO. Even if we never change the default, <?php echo "<?xml ......?>";?> works always w/o patch. -- Yasuo Ohgaki Ilia A. wrote: > On October 16, 2002 11:11 pm, Yasuo Ohgaki wrote: > >>Ilia A. wrote: >> >>>>Isn't BIG caution for short_open_tag=Off while having short_open_tag=On >>>>enough for now? Something like; >>> >>>Nope, please consider a hosting enviroment where an average user does not >>>even have access to the php.ini file. In fact, most ISP won't make user's >>>life difficult by forcing <?php because they know that'll lead to waste >>>of their time and money since they'll be forced to deal with user >>>complains about why their PHP scripts are not working. >>>Even people with the ability to modify this file will not necessarily >>>edit it and only do so if they need to change an option not changeable >>>via other means. >> >>We should have warned people not to use short tags years ago. > > > What happened in the past is in the past, lets concentrate on the future. > > >>We can try it from now. Until we get rid of short tag or >>disable it by default, we suggest users to work around >>problem. >> >>echo "<?xml ......?>" works always and authors of portable >>scripts should use it. If there are new processing tags, >>echo "<?new_xml_PI .........?>" instead of adding new PI >>to parser. (We never know if user use custom PI tag or not) > > > I think that we can say with a fair degree of certainty <?xml will remain as > is. No one will want to change for BC reasons ;). I find it even less likely > that we'd drop short tags when PHP6 comes around because they'll be even more > users using them then there are now (assuming php usage increases). For most > people it is easier to use <? then <?php and since it works just about > everywhere it is 'safe' to do, at least as far as they know. It is also to > easier to remember, especially for newbies, which imho is the most common > reasons people use them. > > Ilia -- PHP Development Mailing List <http://www.php.net/> To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
