How to run a multiline PHP script in HTML page? - php

Question

I am trying to wrap my head around php and html, and wanted to ask some help with what I guess are basics.
I am aware that you can run a php script on a single line in a .html page with tags. The problem comes when I have a longer script on multiple lines (It generates a table) that I run from localhost:
<?php
$rows = 10; // define number of rows
$cols = 10;// define number of columns
echo "<table border='1'>";
for($tr=1;$tr<=$rows;$tr++){
echo "<tr>";
for($td=1;$td<=$cols;$td++){
echo "<td>Fill</td>";
}
echo "</tr>";
}
echo "</table>";
?>
The above will come out as plain text after first ">" sign, so I guess for some reason the page reads it as I close the php snippet and executes rest as plain HTML (I run the file through apache). I am aware that you can rename the file to .php instead, and get whole thing working, but I want to understand know how PHP behave on HTML pages.
So I have two questions:
1) Is it possible to make the .html read the above code snippet without breaking it apart? I've tried htmlspecialchars, didn't help.
2) Is it possible to have the above snippet as a separate .php file, that I call from .html page like I can call a javascript function? I've tried <?php include 'field.php';?> which didn't work. I've looked into .htaccess, but it seems that's a solution for live versions, which didn't work for me.
Thank you!

Answer 1

The above will come out as plain text after first ">" sign,
PHP is not being processed. Probably because you're using the .html extension. Use .php.
.html will only work if you specifically tell Apache to treat .html as a PHP file.

Answer 2

It looks like you actually aren't evaluating the PHP at all. I suggest you view source, and then you'll see that the browser is actually trying to render all of this as a tag in the document:
<?php
$rows = 10; // define number of rows
$cols = 10;// define number of columns
echo "<table border='1'>
While it isn't impossible to have files with the extension .html render PHP (or Perl, or Python, or what have you), it is uncommon for a server to have that set up by default. I suggest changing the file's extension to .php. If your server is set up to process PHP at all, that will cause it to properly evaluate the script.

Answer 3

You need to set Apache to read HTML files as PHP. Find your php.conf, its usually is the etc directory like : /etc/apache/mods-enabled/php.conf
Add the following to the file:
<FilesMatch ".+\.html$">
SetHandler application/x-httpd-php
</FilesMatch>
And then restart the apache service:
service apache restart
The modules on your server might have different names, too. Apache may be apache or apache2 and your PHP may have the version after the name like php5. This should be reflected in both the directory in which your PHP conf file is located and the service that you restart.
Once your conf file is updated, Apache will treat all html files as PHP and you should be able to put as much PHP code as you want throughout the file. Note: The PHP parser will only work if you use <?php to open (or <? open if short tags are enabled) and ?> to close your PHP bits.