getting a parsing error, checked 25 times cant find it!

tkeyes

I am trying to view several webpages one one page with a variable. Has worked so far, but cannot get past a parsing error,

Parse error: parse error, unexpected T_STRING in http://quicktake.morningstar.com/Stock/cashflow10.asp?Country=USA&Symbol=a&stocktab=finance on line 457

Here is the applicable code,

<?php // symbol submitted in the form
$sym = $_POST['symbol'];

$cashflowten = "http://quicktake.morningstar.com/Stock/cashflow10.asp?Country=USA&Symbol={$sym}&stocktab=finance";
include $cashflowten;

any help is greatly appreciated,

thanks in advance

bpat1434

and which line is 457?

~Brett

dalecosp

...and furthermore, consider that just because the parser discovers the error upon reaching said line doesn't mean that the line number given is where the actual error (in human-readable terms) might be. Sometimes yes, and sometimes it's simply that the parser discovers when it hits something "unexpected" that something was missing above; however, it's not smart enough to remember where that last $thingy was... 😉

Good code formatting, and perhaps a syntax-highlighting editor/IDE can go a long way towards debugging parse errors.

tkeyes

there is no line 457. Thats what I can't understand. The syntax looks fine, the resulting URL looks fine if I manually enter it. For some reason, I keep getting this parse error.

Roger_Ramjet

Well there is a line 457, it's in the file you are 'including'. Trouble is that that file is the html output from an asp script, not php code, and pretty soon it generates an php syntax error. At a minimum you would have to escape out of php (?>) to parse the html. How you are going to do that with an include() is beyond me. So you need to think about doing this another way.
hint: look at the filesysten functions

tkeyes

thanks for the suggestions. why is the html being parsed. Shouldnt the include() just ask the browser to display the HTML?

Roger_Ramjet

Brett's answer is much more acurate.

bpat1434

When you use the [man]include/man function, PHP will include all code as non-parsed HTML code, unless it reaches PHP tags. So if you have a HTML header, and just do "include('htmlheader.html")" it will include and display as normal HTML.

When a file is included, parsing drops out of PHP mode and into HTML mode at the beginning of the target file, and resumes again at the end. For this reason, any code inside the target file which should be executed as PHP code must be enclosed within valid PHP start and end tags.

Check the HTML page, and see if they have any php opening tags. It's in the HTML page, or a result of the included HTML page.

~Brett

tkeyes

is there any way to use include(htmlheader.html) to include a variable?

Again, I really appreciate the help on this. thanks

bpat1434

No, if you want to include just a variable, you'd be better off using $_GET or sessions. Or, include the file with the variable in it....

~Brett

Weedpacket

$cashflowten = file_get_contents("http://quicktake.morningstar.com/Stock/cashflow10.asp?Country=USA&Symbol={$sym}&stocktab=finance");
echo $cashflowten;

Of course, if there is more than one of these on the page, or if this is being embedded in another page, the result will be very ill-formed HTML, and probably look oozhassny.

bpat1434

Weed:
He contaced me via PM, and I told him to do the exact same thing, well, almost. The first line is the same. I told him to get teh contents via "file_get_contents" and use that to echo it out. But I also pointed him in the direction of my article which covers "remoting" so that he can use RegEx to get just the information he wants, or remove some of the bloated code so he can fit it in his site.

~Brett

Weedpacket

Y'see, that's one of the problems with doing this sort of thing by PM; the public misses out.