endforeach in loops?

I use brackets when using foreach loops. What is endforeach for?

Solution 1:

It's mainly so you can make start and end statements clearer when creating HTML in loops:

<table>
<? while ($record = mysql_fetch_assoc($rs)): ?>
    <? if (!$record['deleted']): ?>
        <tr>
        <? foreach ($display_fields as $field): ?>
            <td><?= $record[$field] ?></td>
        <? endforeach; ?>
        <td>
        <select name="action" onChange="submit">
        <? foreach ($actions as $action): ?>
            <option value="<?= $action ?>"><?= $action ?>
        <? endforeach; ?>
        </td>
        </tr>
    <? else: ?>
         <tr><td colspan="<?= array_count($display_fields) ?>"><i>record <?= $record['id'] ?> has been deleted</i></td></tr>
    <? endif; ?>
<? endwhile; ?>
</table>

versus

<table>
<? while ($record = mysql_fetch_assoc($rs)) { ?>
    <? if (!$record['deleted']) { ?>
        <tr>
        <? foreach ($display_fields as $field) { ?>
            <td><?= $record[$field] ?></td>
        <? } ?>
        <td>
        <select name="action" onChange="submit">
        <? foreach ($actions as $action) { ?>
            <option value="<?= $action ?>"><?= action ?>
        <? } ?>
        </td>
        </tr>
    <? } else { ?>
         <tr><td colspan="<?= array_count($display_fields) ?>"><i>record <?= $record['id'] ?> has been deleted</i></td></tr>
    <? } ?>
<? } ?>
</table>

Hopefully my example is sufficient to demonstrate that once you have several layers of nested loops, and the indenting is thrown off by all the PHP open/close tags and the contained HTML (and maybe you have to indent the HTML a certain way to get your page the way you want), the alternate syntax (endforeach) form can make things easier for your brain to parse. With the normal style, the closing } can be left on their own and make it hard to tell what they're actually closing.

Solution 2:

It's the end statement for the alternative syntax:

foreach ($foo as $bar) :
    ...
endforeach;

Useful to make code more readable if you're breaking out of PHP:

<?php foreach ($foo as $bar) : ?>
    <div ...>
        ...
    </div>
<?php endforeach; ?>

Solution 3:

as an alternative syntax you can write foreach loops like so

foreach($arr as $item):
    //do stuff
endforeach;

This type of syntax is typically used when php is being used as a templating language as such

<?php foreach($arr as $item):?>
    <!--do stuff -->
<?php endforeach; ?>

Solution 4:

It's just a different syntax. Instead of

foreach ($a as $v) {
    # ...
}

You could write this:

foreach ($a as $v):
    # ...
endforeach;

They will function exactly the same; it's just a matter of style. (Personally I have never seen anyone use the second form.)