How to Create Links in PHP

Websites are filled with links. You're probably already aware of how to create a link in HTML. If you've added PHP to your web server to be able to enhance your site's capabilities, you may be surprised to learn that you create a link in PHP the same as you do in HTML. You have a few options, though. Depending on where in your file the link is, you might present the link HTML in a slightly different way.

You can switch back and forth between PHP and HTML in the same document, and you can use the same software—any plain text editor will do—to write PHP as to write HTML.

How to Add Links to PHP Documents

If you are making a link in a PHP document that is outside of the PHP brackets, you just use HTML as usual. Here is an example:

<a href="https://twitter.com/angela_bradley">My Twitter</a>
<?php
----- My PHP Code----
?>

If the link needs to be inside the PHP, you have two options. One option is to end the PHP, enter the link in HTML, and then reopen PHP. Here is an example:

<?php
----- My PHP Code----
?>
<a href="https://twitter.com/angela_bradley">My Twitter</a>
<?php
----- My PHP Code---- 
?>

The other option is to print or echo the HTML code inside the PHP. Here is an example:

<?php
Echo "<a href=https://twitter.com/angela_bradley>My Twitter</a>"
?>

Another thing you can do is create a link from a variable. Let's say that the variable $url holds the URL for a website that someone has submitted or that you have pulled from a database. You can use the variable in your HTML.

<a href="https://twitter.com/angela_bradley">My Twitter</a>
<?php
Echo "<a href=$url>$site_title</a>"
?>

For Beginning PHP Programmers

If you are new to PHP, remember you begin and end a section of PHP code using <?php and ?> respectively. This code lets the server know that what is included is PHP code. Try a PHP beginner's tutorial to get your feet wet in the programming language. Before long, you'll be using PHP to set up a member login, redirect a visitor to another page, add a survey to your website, create a calendar, and add other interactive features to your webpages.