How to make if condition in HTML sidebar in PHP - php

Question

I have a sidebar as follows in HTML,
<div class="sidebar">
<h2 style="font-family: Verdana;">Dashboard</h2>
<ul>
<li><i class="fa fa-home"></i> Home</li>
<li><i class="fa fa-paper-plane"></i> dummy1</li>
<li><i class="fa fa-mobile"></i> dummy2</li>
<li><i class="fa fa-phone"></i> dummy3</li>
<li><i class="fa fa-plug"></i> dummy4</li>
</ul>
</div>
I need to check the username and show the tab.By using below code part I could get the current user logged in. I need to check whether below value is equal to John if and only if I need to show the tabs.
<?php echo htmlspecialchars($_SESSION["username"]); ?>
As an example,
if( htmlspecialchars($_SESSION["username"])=='John'){
<li><i class="fa fa-paper-plane"></i> dummy1</li>
<li><i class="fa fa-mobile"></i> dummy2</li>
<li><i class="fa fa-phone"></i> dummy3</li>
<li><i class="fa fa-plug"></i> dummy4</li>
}
Can someone show me how to achieve this with php and HTML?

Answer 1

You're nearly there - just wrap the PHP bits in PHP tags.
Also as an aside, you don't need htmlspecialchars() unless you're outputting the value into a HTML document. When you're just using it in an if, you're not outputting it.
<?php
if( $_SESSION["username"] =='John'){
?>
<li><i class="fa fa-paper-plane"></i> dummy1</li>
<li><i class="fa fa-mobile"></i> dummy2</li>
<li><i class="fa fa-phone"></i> dummy3</li>
<li><i class="fa fa-plug"></i> dummy4</li>
<?php
}
?>