Help with variables and '<<<'

[ideasforhumans]

So, I'm fairly new to PHP and I've been searching everywhere trying to figure out how the below is working.

 

private function build_db() {
$sql = <<<MySQL_QUERY
	CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS test_db (
		title					VARCHAR(150),
		bodytext				TEXT,
		created				VARCHAR(100)
	)
	MySQL_QUERY;

	return mysql_query($sql);
}

 

On the line where $sql is defined, what's up with the '<<<'? Thank you in advance.

 

[Alex]

http://us.php.net/manual/en/language.types.string.php#language.types.string.syntax.heredoc

[ideasforhumans]

Thanks a ton, man.

[ignace]

Actually your code does not work as the ending heredoc statement may not contain spaces or tabs:

 

          $code = <<<HEREDOC
              code code code
HEREDOC;

 

Like mentioned in the manual:

 

The closing identifier must begin in the first column of the line.

 

Which to me, makes them to ugly to use