php operator <<<
<blockquote>
  <p><strong>Possible Duplicate:</strong><br>
  <a href="http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6062830/what-is-the-name-for-the-operator">What is the name for the &ldquo;&lt;&lt;&lt;&rdquo; operator?</a>  </p>
</blockquote>



<p>I've just seen this code on this website:</p>

<p><a href="http://css-tricks.com/1907-php-for-beginners-building-your-first-simple-cms/" rel="nofollow">PHP for Beginners: Building Your First Simple CMS</a></p>

<p>The code is:</p>

<pre><code>private function buildDB() {
    $sql = &lt;&lt;&lt;MySQL_QUERY
        CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS testDB (
            title       VARCHAR(150),
            bodytext    TEXT,
            created     VARCHAR(100)
    )
    MySQL_QUERY;

    return mysql_query($sql);
}
</code></pre>

<p>I've search high and low for this operand "&lt;&lt;&lt;" but I can't seem to find the documentation anywhere!</p>

<p>If this operand is <i>real</i> I would like to know how it works because writing SQL queries like this makes code much more readable and would make SQL bugs simpler to find!</p>

<p>Might i add that i tried this code and got a compile error:</p>

<pre><code>Parse error: syntax error, unexpected $end in C:\Users\Alex Morley-Finch\Dropbox\Shared\Projects\htdocs\test\php\database.php on line 121 
</code></pre>
