Concatenate var into ECHO. no way to do this? eclipse error

[vba_php]

hey you guys, eclipse is throwing an error at me when I try to do this:

            if ($index === 0) { echo "<td><a href='https://www.ip-tracker.org/locator/ip-lookup.php?ip='" . $col target='_blank'>$col</a></td>"; }
            else { echo "<td>$col</td>"; }
            $index++;

what am I doing wrong? I’ve tried almost all incarnations I can think of! putting the var in single quotes, double quotes, and many other things. the error is: multiple annotations found at this line. unexpected "/"

[vba_php]

i’ve fixed the syntax error, but now the $col variable is not showing up in the web address when I click on the hyperlink. this is my code, and I’m a bit stuck:

            if ($index === 0) { echo "<td><a href='https://www.ip-tracker.org/locator/ip-lookup.php?ip='.'$col' target='_blank'>$col</a></td>"; }
            else { echo "<td>$col</td>"; }
            $index++;

[frankbeen]

When using HTML in a string i like to use single quotes so that you dont have to escape the double quotes which are very often used inside HTML.

$html = '<a href="#">click</a>'; // this works fine

On the other hand writing queries i set the string between double qoutes for the same reason:

$querystring = "SELECT * FROM users WHERE email='[email protected]'";

Wit concatenating variables in php i like to keep the variables outside the qoutes and to use the concatenation operator (.). Example:

echo '<td>' . $col . '</td>';

If really necessary you can escape quotes in strings. Little example:

echo 'Please don\'t leave the door open'; 

While this website doesn’t highlight this the right way it would in your php editor.

[vba_php]

after playing with this stupid thing through many incarnations, I have found the following to be acceptable to eclipse. I’m sorry to bother you guys with simplicity! =/

if ($index === 0) { echo "<td><a href='https://www.ip-tracker.org/locator/ip-lookup.php?ip=$col' target='_blank'>$col</a></td>"; }

[vba_php]

thank you frank. I will look at what you posted later on. I simply went through trial and error due to frustration with an IDE. I’ve gone through this many times before with other IDE’s that suck.

[vba_php]

I’m not sure your examples though, are relevant to my issue. But I will keep your words in my knowledgebase. thanks again Frank. =)

[ErnieAlex]

echo "

<a href=‘https://www.ip-tracker.org/locator/ip-lookup.php?ip=’.’$col’

He was explaining that your code is incorrect. You can’t concatenate with a period this way because you started the string with a double quote. You would need to end the double quote then use period then the variable. The concatenation using a period must be done outside of the starting quote or double-quote.
echo “something” . $col; works.
echo "something’ . $col; does not work.

[vba_php]

thank you ernie. =) your words are always wise.

[ErnieAlex]

Sometimes it is hard to understand the explanation.
Sometimes reworded a different way gives light to the problem.
Glad you get it now. Frank gave the answer. I just shed light on it a bit more…
Always nice to solve a programming puzzle.