Title: Shorthand PHP Tags
Last modified: August 21, 2016

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# Shorthand PHP Tags

 *  Resolved [Katrina](https://wordpress.org/support/users/orchidmaze/)
 * (@orchidmaze)
 * [11 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/shorthand/)
 * Hi Fakhri, I appreciate the effort you have put into this plugin and I would 
   like to check it out however I am having a hard time getting it to work because
   I have my site on a shared hosting server still running PHP 5.3 and they have
   disabled shorthand php tags, which you use in a few places in your code thus 
   the functionality is breaking.
 * Any chance you could change to use the normal tags (the long ones) please?
 * Kind Regards
    Katrina

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

 *  Thread Starter [Katrina](https://wordpress.org/support/users/orchidmaze/)
 * (@orchidmaze)
 * [11 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/shorthand/#post-5011953)
 * Also just want to share that WordPress has coding standards in which they recommend
   not to use shorthand tags:
 * [http://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/coding-standards/php/#no-shorthand-php-tags](http://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/coding-standards/php/#no-shorthand-php-tags)
 * PS: Saying this in good spirit, please don’t think I am telling you how to code
   🙂
 *  Thread Starter [Katrina](https://wordpress.org/support/users/orchidmaze/)
 * (@orchidmaze)
 * [11 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/shorthand/#post-5011959)
 * It seems there is only about 20-ish places to change this so I’ve got it working
   now but won’t be able to update unless you change it too before your next release.
 * Thanks in advance…
 *  [nicomollet](https://wordpress.org/support/users/nicomollet/)
 * (@nicomollet)
 * [11 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/shorthand/#post-5012175)
 * This needs to be fixed.
 * As Katrina said, shorthand tags are not standard for WP development.
    Plugin 
   is not usable.
 *  [Timothy Johnson](https://wordpress.org/support/users/wearefound/)
 * (@wearefound)
 * [11 years, 6 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/shorthand/#post-5012177)
 * In searching this out, is there a reason WHY shorthand is not acceptable? I can
   understand some of the compatibility issues with your host (mentioned above) 
   but it does not seem reasonable that this old standard is favored in light of
   the much cleaner syntax.
 *  [nicomollet](https://wordpress.org/support/users/nicomollet/)
 * (@nicomollet)
 * [11 years, 6 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/shorthand/#post-5012178)
 * Many reasons why:
    [http://www.askapache.com/php/shorthand-short_open_tag.html](http://www.askapache.com/php/shorthand-short_open_tag.html)
 * The main reason is WordPress guidelines strictly forbid using it:
    [https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/coding-standards/php/#no-shorthand-php-tags](https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/coding-standards/php/#no-shorthand-php-tags)
 * Same for Joomla:
    [http://joomla.github.io/coding-standards/?coding-standards/chapters/php.md](http://joomla.github.io/coding-standards/?coding-standards/chapters/php.md)
 * Same for Drupal:
    [https://www.drupal.org/coding-standards#phptags](https://www.drupal.org/coding-standards#phptags)
 * Same for Zend:
    [http://framework.zend.com/wiki/display/ZFDEV2/Coding+Standards#CodingStandards-CodingStyle](http://framework.zend.com/wiki/display/ZFDEV2/Coding+Standards#CodingStandards-CodingStyle)
 *  [Fakhri Alsadi](https://wordpress.org/support/users/fakhris/)
 * (@fakhris)
 * [11 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/shorthand/#post-5012196)
 * We are sorry for that, in the next few days I will upload a new version that 
   has a major fixes and updates.

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

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## Tags

 * [short_open_tag](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/short_open_tag/)

 * 6 replies
 * 4 participants
 * Last reply from: [Fakhri Alsadi](https://wordpress.org/support/users/fakhris/)
 * Last activity: [11 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/shorthand/#post-5012196)
 * Status: resolved