A not well documented feature of heredocs or <<< in PHP is that it returns the string, making it possible to use with variables as well as with echo or print statements/constructs/functions:
$variable = 'Edge'
$toprint = <<< END
Something with an $variable
END;
The output wil be
Something with an Edge
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_document#PHP for more information on heredocs