Normally, when variables in PHP are enclosed in single quotes, they are treated as strings, i.e
echo '$variable';
will actually echo the word $variable onto the screen.
So why is it then that this string is parsed:
echo "'$variable'";
That code actually does echo the value of the variable. Why is that? It's still inside single quotes, so why does it still get parsed?
Because the single quotes are inside double quotes. Anything inside double quotes gets evaluated. So, your echo statement is passed a string inside double quotes.
This string is evaluated then output. It contains single quotes and a variable.
Try this instead:
<?php
$var = 10;
echo '"$var"';
?>
Because it's in double-quotes as well. The outer most layer of quotes denotes what kind of string it is.
The string is wrapped in double quotes -- the single quotes are part of the content of the string, not part of the string's delimiter. Therefore the single quotes have no semantic meaning whatsoever.
Your question indicates that you may have a fundamental misunderstanding of strings. This is OK! Strings are surprisingly complex entities, and will only get more complex if you learn lower level languages like C. I would suggest you spend some time reading up on strings both in general as well as within PHP. A few quick google searches will honestly be better than a curated list for this task.
It is simply a double quoted string that contains two single quote characters. Once they are in the double quotes, they have no meaning to the parser.