Random error using Strlen and Substr

[suleiman]

I'm trying to run what I thought was a pretty basic function:

function titleprint1() {
if (strlen($titlepost1) < 10) {
return*nl2br(substr($titlepost1, 0, 10))*.*'...';
	}
else {
            return*nl2br($titlepost1);
	}
}

When doing so I get the following error:

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_STRING in home.php on line 156

line 156 is this line from the code:

return*nl2br(substr($titlepost1, 0, 10))*.*'...';

EDIT: I noticed that asterisks were placed where I had spaces. In the actual code of course, there are no asterisks.

[bradgrafelman]

suleiman wrote:

EDIT: I noticed that asterisks were placed where I had spaces. In the actual code of course, there are no asterisks.

This may be the problem, though - the board probably replaced a weird character with those *'s. Try completely erasing that entire line and retyping it by hand, making sure to use normal spaces.

[suleiman]

I was able to fix my problem by taking it all out of a function and instead using a simple if statement:

If (strlen($titlepost1) > 20) {
$titlepost1 = nl2br(substr($titlepost1, 0, 20)) . '...';
}

Works just dandy!

[NogDog]

Variables within a function are locally scoped to that function and have no relation to variables of the same name outside of the function (unless you declare them as global within the function). It would probably be best to pass is as a parameter:

function titleprint1($titlepost1) {
   if (strlen($titlepost1) < 10) {
      return*nl2br(substr($titlepost1, 0, 10))*.*'...';
   }
   else {
      return*nl2br($titlepost1);
   }
}
// usage:
$titlepost1 = titleprint1($titlepost1);