When working with strings, it is important to understand the difference in how PHP treats single quotes (echo ‘Hello $name’; ) as compared with double quotes (echo “Hello $name”; )
Single quoted strings will display things exactly “as is.” Variables will not be substituted for their values. The first example above (echo ‘Hello $name’; ) will print out Hello $name.
Double quote strings will display a host of escaped characters and variables in the strings will be substituted for their values. The second example above (echo “Hello $name” ) will print out Hello Alan if the $name variable contains ‘Alan’.
[php]
<?php
echo ‘this is a string’;
echo “this is a string”;
//both output the same thing
$icecream =”chocolate”;
echo ‘I like $icecream icecream’; // prints I like $icecream ice cream
echo “I like $icecream icecream”; // prints I like chocolate ice cream
?>
[/php]