diff --git a/system/core/Loader.php b/system/core/Loader.php
index 12daaa9..20cf7ef 100644
--- a/system/core/Loader.php
+++ b/system/core/Loader.php
@@ -833,7 +833,7 @@
 		// If the PHP installation does not support short tags we'll
 		// do a little string replacement, changing the short tags
 		// to standard PHP echo statements.
-		if ((bool) @ini_get('short_open_tag') === FALSE AND config_item('rewrite_short_tags') == TRUE)
+		if ( ! is_php('5.4') && (bool) @ini_get('short_open_tag') === FALSE && config_item('rewrite_short_tags') == TRUE)
 		{
 			echo eval('?>'.preg_replace('/;*\s*\?>/', '; ?>', str_replace('<?=', '<?php echo ', file_get_contents($_ci_path))));
 		}
diff --git a/user_guide_src/source/changelog.rst b/user_guide_src/source/changelog.rst
index bef405e..37016f8 100644
--- a/user_guide_src/source/changelog.rst
+++ b/user_guide_src/source/changelog.rst
@@ -95,6 +95,7 @@
    -  Removed CI_CORE boolean constant from CodeIgniter.php (no longer Reactor and Core versions).
    -  Added method get_vars() to CI_Loader to retrieve all variables loaded with $this->load->vars().
    -  is_loaded() function from system/core/Commons.php now returns a reference.
+   -  $config['rewrite_short_tags'] now has no effect when using PHP 5.4 as *<?=* will always be available.
 
 Bug fixes for 3.0
 ------------------