PHP - concatenate or directly insert variables in string

Since php4 you can use a string formater:

$num = 5;
$word = 'banana';
$format = 'can you say %d times the word %s';
echo sprintf($format, $num, $word);

Source: sprintf()

Double-quoted strings are more elegant because you don't have to break up your string every time you need to insert a variable (like you must do with single-quoted strings).

However, if you need to insert the return value of a function, this cannot be inserted into a double-quoted string--even if you surround it with braces!

//syntax error!!
//$s = "Hello {trim($world)}!"

//the only option
$s = "Hello " . trim($world) . "!";

Between those two syntaxes, you should really choose the one you prefer :-)

Personally, I would go with your second solution in such a case (Variable interpolation), which I find easier to both write and read.

The result will be the same; and even if there are performance implications, those won't matter ¹.

As a sidenote, so my answer is a bit more complete: the day you'll want to do something like this:

echo "Welcome $names!";

PHP will interpret your code as if you were trying to use the $names variable -- which doesn't exist. - note that it will only work if you use "" not '' for your string.

That day, you'll need to use {}:

echo "Welcome {$name}s!"

No need to fallback to concatenations.

Also note that your first syntax:

echo "Welcome ".$name."!";

Could probably be optimized, avoiding concatenations, using:

echo "Welcome ", $name, "!";

(But, as I said earlier, this doesn't matter much...)

_{1 - Unless you are doing hundreds of thousands of concatenations vs interpolations -- and it's probably not quite the case.}