Parse Error Newbie in dire need of parse help (mental help too:)

JakL

As you read this you will discover my lack of knowlege of php. I got a simple program from my webhoster for a guest book. My webserver has MySQL runniung for the clients and I followed the directions that came with it. Seppe even created a install.php file that I followed to the T. Here's the web site if you want to try it, just look for the guestbook because the rest of the site is in Belgum ->www.sepi.be'<-. Anyway, I created a database with myphpadmin on the web server, created a guestbook folder under the httpdocs folder (the web hosters suggested uploading the index.htm there for it to work.
Well, I CHMOD'ed the config.php to 777 (like the instructions said) and then created a link in my index.htm to the guestbook.php, but when I tried to "use" the link, it come back with a ERROR: parse /fullpath/of/server/guestbook.php line 94.

The question is: What am I doing wrong? I opened it in CuteFTP's CuteHTML LE that lets you edit lines of PHP and tried to delete the 94th line witch is just a comment. Well, it looks as if the error has just moved up. Can someone please look at this code and see if its something I'm doing.

[ php ]
<?php
/_______________
AnotherGuestbook

A free guestbook
by www.sepi.be
______________*

Warning: this is my first PHP script, so if you discover some errors or
security risks, please mail me (seppe@pandora.be)

/* Add your header below this line, for example:
include("skins/multicolor/header.txt");

/ First, you'll have to create the guestbook table in your database
So go to your MyPHPAdmin and execute this query:

CREATE TABLE guestbook (
id int(11) NOT NULL auto_increment,
commentaar longtext NOT NULL,
naam varchar(20) NOT NULL default '',
tijd varchar(8) NOT NULL default '',
datum varchar(10) NOT NULL default '',
website varchar(70) NOT NULL default '',
email varchar (70) NOT NULL default '',
PRIMARY KEY (id),
UNIQUE KEY id_2 (id),
KEY id (id)
) TYPE=MyISAM;

Got it? ok ..*

/ Config settings; fill in your database settings between the " and " */
$dbhost = "localhost"; // this is mostly "localhost"
$databees = "sepi"; // this is the name of your database
$dbusername = "sepi"; // this is your username
$dbpassword = "svan123sande"; // this is your password

/ Form to add entries /?>
<table><form method="post" action="guestbook.php">
<tr><td><b>Name:</b></td><td><input type="text" name="naam" STYLE="BORDER: black 1px solid; WIDTH: 144px; height: 15px; color:black; font-size: xx-small; background: white;" size="25"></td></tr>
<tr><td><b>Website:</b></td><td><input type="text" name="website" STYLE="BORDER: black 1px solid; WIDTH: 144px; height: 15px; color:black; font-size: xx-small; background: white;" size="25"></td></tr>
<tr><td><b>E-mail:</b></td><td><input type="text" name="email" STYLE="BORDER: black 1px solid; WIDTH: 144px; height: 15px; color:black; font-size: xx-small; background: white;" size="25"></td></tr>
<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td><textarea type="comment" name="commentaar" STYLE="overflow:hidden; BORDER: black 1px solid; color: black; WIDTH: 144px; height: 80px; font-size: xx-small; background: white"; cols="35" rows="5"></textarea></tr>
<tr><td> </td><td><input type="submit" name="posten" value="ok"><input type="reset" name="opnieuw" value="reset"></td></tr>
</form></table><?

/ connecting to the database /
if ($HTTP_POST_VARS['posten']) {
mysql_connect($dbhost,$dbusername,$dbpassword);
mysql_select_db($databees);

/ Let's check that the necesarry fields are filled in /
/ btw, || is OR /

if (($naam <> "") && ($commentaar <>"")){
/ Let's strip html tags out of the posts, so bad 1337 h4x0rZ can't abuse the guestbok with dirty HTML tags /
$naam = strip_tags($naam);
$website = strip_tags($website);
$email = strip_tags($email);
$commentaar = strip_tags($commentaar);

/ Good! Let's add it to the database 🙂 /
$insert = "INSERT INTO guestbook (naam,website,email,commentaar) VALUES ('$naam','$website','$email','$commentaar')";
$query = mysql_query($insert)or die(mysql_error());

} else {
echo "You need to fill in your name and your comments!";
}
}

/ view the submitted entries /
mysql_connect($dbhost,$dbusername,$dbpassword);
@mysql_select_db($databees) or die("Unable to select database");
$view = "SELECT * FROM guestbook ORDER BY id DESC";

$query = mysql_query($view);
$aantalrecords = mysql_num_rows($query);

while ($list = mysql_fetch_object($query)) {
echo "<p><table><tr><td><b>Name</b></td><td>$list->naam</td></tr>";
echo "<tr><td><b>Website</b></td><td><a href='$list->website' target='new'>$list->website</a></td></tr>";
echo "<tr><td><b>E-mail</b></td><td><a href='mailto:$list->email' target='new'>$list->email</a></td></tr>";
echo "<tr><td><b>Comments</b></td><td>$list->commentaar</td></tr></table></p>
<p>"; } echo "<small>guestbook by <a href='http://www.sepi.be'>sepi</a></small>";
/ Ok, that's it .. now you still have the posibility to add your footer under
this line /</p>
<p>next line footer test</p>

[ / php ]

Anyway does anyone have any suggestions? I know this person probably wrote some rock solid code, I'm just not knowing what I'm doing.

could you please edit your post and add the [ php ] and [ / php ] tags around your code so that we can make sense of it.

If you could also indicate which is line 94, that would be a help too.

jpmoriarty

could you please edit your post and add the [ php ] and [ / php ] tags around your code so that we can make sense of it.

If you could also indicate which is line 94, that would be a help too.

JakL

Dear jpmoriarty (John),
Thank you for your quick reply, I went back and put those

and

brackets in at the top and bottom. Im sorry I didnt put them in at first, but this is the way I got the code, could that be a problem too? As for the line with the error, I'm not 100% sure if line 94 is this one:

/ Ok, that's it .. now you still have the posibility to add your footer under
this line /</p>

What I did was use CuteHTML LE to open the guestbook.php. It put line numbers in for me, the reason Im not 100% sure that the line above is line 94 is because: Is CuteHTML LE line numbers the right line numbers? If they are, then Im confused because the comment line looks correct. it has the comment brackets / comment / and how could a comment create a parse error? The only thing I can think it may be is the </p>, but it has a headder of <p>. Another thing I also did when I was creating the data base on the web server (entryhost.com) was put the top code in the MyPHPAdmin text box and clicked the "go" button. Here is the code:

/ First, you'll have to create the guestbook table in your database
So go to your MyPHPAdmin and execute this query:

After I pasted and "go"ed the code, it showed the data base was running and it was okay but it also sent a copy back to me that opened in CuteHTML LE automatically. On MyPHPadmin, I clicked "edit", the program had options to check and optimize the code, it said it was good and opmitized. I really want to get some simple guest book working, study it, then make my own. If I could just get this one working...
Eagerly Waiting,
Robert

xblue

your editing action has not been too successful yet, you should remove the spaces from the [php] tags - these were only to avoid these tags being taken as formatting instructions instead of being displayed in John's post.

there is one thing to remember: you can have plain html mixed with php code, but if you do that you need to jump in and out of the php mode which is enclosed in <? ?>.

you can easily see the html and php blocks with syntax highlighting. example:

<html>
<body>
<?
echo "<h1>my page</h1>";
?>
<p>some text</p>
<?
if ($var) {
    echo "<p>The variable is set.</p>";
} else {
    echo "<p>The variable is not set.</p>";
}
?>
</body>
</html>

so, before you write plain html in the footer, make sure you leave the php mode with "?>".

There may be more errors still, though.