LAMP Server not executing PHP scripts properly - php

Question

I have a LAMP(Ubuntu) Server running on a physical machine. My goal is to host a website on the server. Right now, I have all my files in my /var/www/html directory and inside certain HTML files, I run PHP scripts to check if the user is logged in or not such as below:
<div class="collapse navbar-collapse" id = "navCollapse">
<ul class="nav navbar-nav navbar-right">
<li class="active link-nav">Home</li>
<li class="link-nav">Categories</li>
<li class="link-nav">About</li>
<!-- This part -->
<?php
if($_SESSION['loggedin'] != 1){
echo '<li class="link-nav">
Log In
</li>
<li class="link-nav">
Register
</li>';
}else{
echo "<li class = 'link-nav'> Log Out ";
}
?>
<!-- End of PHP -->
</ul>
</div>
When I open up to my server in the browser, all I get is this:
The $_SESSION['loggedin'] variable has already been set but both the Login and Logout buttons show. Also, the text in between the two sets of strings is showing on the page.
When I display this on my local computer using XAMPP, this doesn't happen.
Any ideas on how to fix this?
Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

This line is invalid. With proper error reporting on, you would see the error. When testing, it will help a lot to have error reporting turned on so you can see the helpful errors :)
echo "<li class = 'link-nav'> Log Out ";
You can not use the double quotes inside themselves without escaping them!
Instead write it like this:
echo '<li class="link-nav">Log Out';
See if that works.

Answer 2

Try this, It's much easier to work with code that has islands rather than everything being a PHP string(Also, take a look at http://www.Laravel.com and http://www.Laracasts.com):
<?php if($_SESSION['loggedin'] != 1){ ?>
<li class="link-nav">
Log In
</li>
<li class="link-nav">
Register
</li>
<?php }else{ ?>
<li class="link-nav"> Log Out
<?php } ?>