[RESOLVED] Unexpected T_Variable

Beginner_BeKind

Hi, All,

I'm pretty new to PHP. I was working on a site for a friend, because I know some html and before I got there he had changed some code. He insists that he only changed some text, but I don't believe him. (Also, side note: I am almost tempted to rebuild the footer-file, because I just don't get why it is written this way.)

Anyway the error I get now is: Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_VARIABLE, expecting ',' or ';' on line 19

I tried reading through to find my problem, but I couldn't figure it out. So I just played around sticking commas and semi colons to end lines, and then removing them and putting them other places. To NO avail. Anyway, I tell you all this because I want you to know that I have tried.

So this is what the code looks like right now:

</tr>

<tr><td colspan="5"><br><font size="2"><!-- #BeginLibraryItem "/layout/footermenu.lbi" -->


</font><div align="center"><span class="style3"><font size="2">
<?php
mysql_connect("host","user","pass");
@mysql_select_db("smokeshop") or die("Unable to connect to database!");
$categories = mysql_query("select * from product order by id");

$cnt = 0;
while($cnt < mysql_numrows($categories)){
	$url = mysql_result($categories,$cnt,"static_url");
	if(mysql_result($categories,$cnt,"static") == 0){
		$url = "/category.php?id=".mysql_result($categories,$cnt,"id");
	}
	$name = mysql_result($categories,$cnt,"name");
	echo "<a href=¥"$url¥">$name</a> | ";
	$cnt++;
}
?><a href="/directions/directions.php">Directions</a> | <a href="/order/order.php">Ordering Information</a></font></span><font size="2"></br>
<span class="style1">Copyright © 1999-2012 The Smoke Shop</span></font></div>
<!-- #EndLibraryItem --><center></center></td></tr>
</tbody></table>

<p>&nbsp;</p>
</body></html>

Any thoughts?

Post-script: The thing my friend was trying to do what update the copyright year. Would the code:

<div id="copyright">
        Copyright &copy; 1999 - <?php echo date('Y');?> The Smoke Shop
    </div>

Do that automatically?

Anyway - I know I'm being a pain, and I'm sure I'm missing something obvious, but a second (or tenth) set of eyes would be so helpful.

Thank you all so much!

bradgrafelman

Welcome to PHPBuilder! When posting PHP code, please use the board's [noparse]

..

[/noparse] bbcode tags as they make your code much easier to read and analyze.

Beginner_BeKind;10996293 wrote:
the error I get now is: Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_VARIABLE, expecting ',' or ';' on line 19

Looking at (what I'm guessing is) that line:

echo "<a href=¥"$url¥">$name</a> | ";

the problem should be fairly obvious - those '¥' characters shouldn't be there.

Instead, I'm guessing they used to be backslashes, which would be required there since they would escape the literal double quotes that appear inside of the double quote delimited string.

Beginner_BeKind;10996293 wrote:
Post-script: The thing my friend was trying to do what update the copyright year. Would the code:
<div id="copyright">
        Copyright &copy; 1999 - <?php echo date('Y');?> The Smoke Shop
    </div>
Do that automatically?

Well the only real "code" there is this:

echo date('Y');

and its meaning is pretty transparent. You can also visit the manual page for [man]date/man to see how the parameter 'Y' is used.

Beginner_BeKind

Hey! Thank you so much for your help. Sorry about not tagging the block correctly. I fixed the problem that you referenced - but I'm still getting the same error message: Unexpected T_variable etc.

Here's what footer.php looks like now:

</tr>

<tr><td colspan="5"><br><font size="2"><!-- #BeginLibraryItem "/layout/footermenu.lbi" -->


</font><div align="center"><span class="style3"><font size="2">
<?php
mysql_connect("host","user","pass");
@mysql_select_db("smokeshop") or die("Unable to connect to database!");
$categories = mysql_query("select * from product order by id");

$cnt = 0;
while($cnt < mysql_numrows($categories)){
	$url = mysql_result($categories,$cnt,"static_url");
	if(mysql_result($categories,$cnt,"static") == 0){
		$url = "/category.php?id=".mysql_result($categories,$cnt,"id");
	}
	$name = mysql_result($categories,$cnt,"name");
	echo "<a href=/"$url/">$name</a> | ";
	$cnt++;
};
?><a href="/directions/directions.php">Directions</a> | <a href="/order/order.php">Ordering Information</a></font></br></div>;
<div id="copyright">
        Copyright &copy; 1999 - <?php echo date('Y');?> The Smoke Shop
    </div>

<!-- #EndLibraryItem --><center></center></td></tr>
</tbody></table>

<p>&nbsp;</p>
</body></html>

My friend insists that he only modified that one line - where it mentions the copy-right years. I'm still at a loss. I'm wondering if it might be easier to just build the whole footer.php from scratch, instead of trying to figure out how it was written.

Any other thoughts?

bradgrafelman

Beginner_BeKind;10996317 wrote:
I fixed the problem that you referenced

Eh... not exactly, but close.

You added forward slashes ( / ), but the common escape character is a back slash ( \ ).

Also note that you may want to remove sensitive information - such as your MySQL login credentials - from code before posting it for the world to see. (I've been obfuscating said information before your posts have appeared, but that's only because they got caught in the spam filter both times.)

Weedpacket

I'd be tempted to rewrite it as well: if there is a database connection error the page just stops dead with "Unable to connect to database!" instead of finishing properly with the remaining links, copyright notice, closing tags, and so on. No-one wants to see that.

Beginner_BeKind

Thank you so much! That did the trick. I can't begin to say how helpful this forum has been for this problem, and in general. I'm going to do all my research here from now on!

(Also, I'm pretty sure I'm just going to rewrite the footer section when I get a chance. )