i have a simple test page in XAMPP testing environment…
<?php
echo “<h1>This…</h1>”;
?>
However, the problem is when it outputs echo to browser it adds the "; ?> after “This…”… I’m sure this is a common problem and tried searching forums and google, but didn’t know what key words to use… Please help I need to do some server side testing…
Try to look into page source.
You’ll be surprised 
Then ensure that you have PHP installed, your script has .php extension and you request it as an URL, not a file.
I have isolated the cause as:
I had a contact.html with a form element in it with action=“process.php”… when I call on process.php in URL manually it works no problem and php code is hidden in page source. However, when I call it from contact.html by clicking Submit button that is when php is NOT recognized–I CAN see it in the page source, and the output gets butchered.
I have my contact.html as XHTML strict 1.0 and some Javascript user validation on the form fields, but I don’t get why this is happening. If anyone can help me and has had experience with this thank you very much in advance.
nevermind guys… this is the strangest thing… I walked away and made a cup of tea… came back and it was working all of a sudden? I didnt change a thing! I did close my browser and restart it so maybe it had something to do with way I entered the URL… whatever… thanks anyways again…
oh BTW I did not stop or restart Apache… it was going strong the whole time… very strange indeed…
you’re probably called your contact.html not from web server but from filesystem