What is phtml, and when should I use a .phtml extension rather than .php?

There is usually no difference, as far as page rendering goes. It's a huge facility developer-side, though, when your web project grows bigger.

I make use of both in this fashion:

• .PHP Page doesn't contain view-related code
• .PHTML Page contains little (if any) data logic and the most part of it is presentation-related

.phtml was the standard file extension for PHP 2 programs. .php3 took over for PHP 3. When PHP 4 came out they switched to a straight .php.

The older file extensions are still sometimes used, but aren't so common.