Error after site migration

C4talyst

Hello, I recently moved a website from GoDaddy hosting to my own Linux server at ThePlanet. The site was coded entirely in php and today some user's started reporting errors that did not exist prior to the migration.

This is what they're seeing:

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected ';' in /home/commrate/public_html/templates/rsBrokerRateSheetList.tmpl.php on line 61

This is line 61 of that page:

				<?=// date("F d, Y", mysqlDateToTimestamp($arrRateSheet["ad_rateSheetDate"])) ?>

This problem did not exist prior to migrating their website to my server this past week. Please help me gurus. My php version is 5.2.8...and thanks very much.

NogDog

Since there is no ";" in the line of code you have quoted, it is difficult to correlate that error message to it. Are you sure that is line 61 of the templates/rsBrokerRateSheetList.tmpl.php file? It might also help to see a few lines before it, too.

One thing to check though is whether or not the new host has the short_open_tags option enabled. If not, that could be a source of problems since the <?= tag would not then function.

C4talyst

That's definitely line 61 listed from the error message. The short_open_tags option is enabled. I'm at a loss...

C4talyst

So I changed the <?=// to <?= and the error disappeared and the page now appears to work. Would someone explain to me why the '//' was there to begin with? Is that some method for commenting in php? Also, would anyone know why it worked on the old server that way? Thanks!

NogDog

Yes, "//" indicates that the rest of the line is a comment (or until it escapes out of PHP at a "?>" on that line). I just tested on my PC, and each of the following lines generates the same error:

<?php echo // "this is ignored by the parser" ?>

<?=// "this is ignored by the parser" ?>

What I think is happening is that the parser assumes a ";" when it gets to a closing "?>" if none was specified, but the comment after the "echo" means that the command is incomplete, thus the somewhat misleading error message. Since "<?=" is equivalent to "<? echo", you are seeing the same thing.

As to why you don't get the error on the other server, I do not know. Maybe a version difference, or some config option I don't know about? (Or maybe it's not commented on the other server?)

C4talyst

Thanks for confirming that for me Nog...weird stuff...

NogDog

Is it possible that short_open_tags was not enabled on the original server? When it is turned off, that line is not parsed as PHP, and will not display on the page as it will be treated as a [invalid] HTML tag (and would only appear if you looked at the HTML source).