<<<TEXT is being using in php variable to output xml? [duplicate] - php

Question

This question already has answers here:
In PHP, what does "<<<" represent?
(8 answers)
Closed 8 years ago.
$xmlSend = <<<TEXT
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<VMCAMEXM>
<business>
<id_company>{$idCompany}</id_company>
<id_branch>{$idBranch}</id_branch>
<country>{$Country}</country>
<user>{$User}</user>
<pwd>{$pwd}</pwd>
</business>
<transacction>
<merchant>{$Merchant}</merchant>
<reference>50000</reference>
<tp_operation>13</tp_operation>
<creditcard>
<crypto>{$Crypto}</crypto>
<type>V/MC</type>
<name>{$name}</name>
<number>{$number}</number>
<expmonth>{$expmonth}</expmonth>
<expyear>{$expyear}</expyear>
<cvv-csc>{$cvv}</cvv-csc>
</creditcard>
<amount>{$cantidad}</amount>
<currency>{$Currency}</currency>
<usrtransacction>1</usrtransacction>
</transacction>
</VMCAMEXM>
TEXT;
echo "<pre>";
print_r(htmlspecialchars($xmlSend));
echo "</pre>";
//$url = $tUrl;
$vars = "&xml=" . $rc4->limpiaVariable(urlencode($xmlSend));
$header[] = "Content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded";
$ch = curl_init();
$postfields = "info_asj3=1".$vars;
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, 0);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL,$Url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 250);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $postfields);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, $header);
$data = curl_exec($ch);
if (curl_errno($ch)) {
$data = curl_error($ch);
} else {
curl_close($ch);
}
I am working with a new company that is using this to connect to an xml feed. But using this beginning <<<TEXT is messing up all the code below it. I do not get any errors, the code works, but all my php code below is in black and honestly just is not easy to manage. If I take it out the xml feed does not function properly. Can someone tell me why this is working and what is a better way to accomplish this? I have searched everywhere and can find nothing on the topic. PLEASE HELP!
Thank you to anyone in advance for taking the time to answer!

Answer 1

This is Heredoc syntax of string.
Using Heredoc for string has the benefit for multi-line strings and can avoid the quoting issues.

Answer 2

This is a HEREDOC string, if you are running into problems with it, it's likely due to the indentation of the closing sequence:
TEXT; //<-- must be in the 0th column, of the text file.
http://php.net/manual/en/language.types.string.php#language.types.string.syntax.heredoc