mkdocs-material: PHP highlighting only works when code block begins with

Description

I’m able to achieve good code highlighting in PHP code, but only when the code begins with <?php. I would like a way to highlight PHP code without having to insert anything into the code block that will display within in the presented code.

When using <?php

```
<?php
$a = array("foo" => 0, "bar" => 1);
foreach ($a as $key => $value) {
  // comment
  echo "{$key} => {$value}" . PHP_EOL;
}
```

This highlighting is good, but I don’t want to insert <?php into all of my php code blocks because (1) it clutters the final presentation, and (2) will confuse some users who think they need to actually write <?php in the example being documented, and (3) is just a tiny bit more work to type.

When using ```php

I would prefer to write my code blocks as follows:

```php
$a = array("foo" => 0, "bar" => 1);
foreach ($a as $key => $value) {
  // comment
  echo "{$key} => {$value}" . PHP_EOL;
}
```

but using the ```php syntax hint does not seem to take affect. With this markdown, I see no code highlighting at all.

Without any language hints

If I don’t mention PHP, I get some highlighting, but it’s done so poorly that it’s actually worse than no highlighting at all.

```
$a = array("foo" => 0, "bar" => 1);
foreach ($a as $key => $value) {
  // comment
  echo "{$key} => {$value}" . PHP_EOL;
}
```

Other notes

• With the three examples above, I see different markup for each, when inspecting with a browser inspector. (e.g. all elements have class="x" in example that produces no highlighting)
• PHP code highlighting works for me in the readthedocs theme by using ```php
• Language hinting seems to work well within Material for other languages when I do ```js or ```python, but not PHP.
• I’ve read #41 and #30 but this seems to be a separate issue

Package versions

• Python: python --version 2.7.6
• MkDocs: mkdocs --version 0.16.1
• Material: pip show mkdocs-material | grep -E ^Version 1.0.3
• Pygments: pip show pygments | grep -E ^Version 2.2.0

Project configuration

site_name: Foo
theme: material
markdown_extensions:
  - codehilite
pages:
- Home: index.md

I’ve also tried - codehilite(css_class=code) (as recommended in other issues I read) but that produced no highlighting at all.

System information

• OS: Linux Mint
• Browser: Firefox & Chrome