Wordpress Text Widget replaces php tags with html

Question

I am attempting to add some php to a page on my wordpress site in the code editor part of my tiny mce editor. However, whenever type something like:

<?php echo "Hello World"; ?>

and then save the article, when I next go to edit the article it replaces my php tags with a html comment:

<!--?php echo "Hello World"; ?-->

Would be very grateful if anyone knows what is going on here and why WordPress is doing this.

Answer 1

To use PHP code in your content editor, you will either need to install a plugin that allows you to do this, or create a shortcode.

To create a shortcode in functions.php:

<?php
function hello_shortcode() {
    echo 'Hello world!';
}
add_shortcode('hello', 'hello_shortcode');
?>

Then in the content editor, put:

[hello]

Hope this helps.