Member Avatar for jstfsklh211

Stupid constant in class declaration issue

One of our live servers is still on php 5.3
and is breaking on the second line with this message
Parse error: syntax error, unexpected '.', expecting ')' in .......
systemAdministrator is a defined constant that i can echo out with no problem before this
any help would be appreciated

$errors = array(
    1 => array('code' => 1, 'mesg' => 'Error connecting to server: Please contact your <a href="mailto:' . systemAdministrator . '">System Administrator</a>'),
    .......,
    .......,
);
Edited by jstfsklh211
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  • Latest Post Latest Post by Member #120589

Dani AI

Generated

If the array assignment is happening as part of a class property (or static) declaration, the parser on older PHP (5.3) will choke on the concatenation because property/default initializers must be constant values at compile time — you cannot use runtime string operations there. That’s a common migration pitfall and will produce a cryptic “unexpected '.'” or similar message even when the constant itself works at runtime. As hinted, parse errors can also be caused by an earlier syntax problem, but this class-property vs runtime-expression issue is the most likely culprit here. (php.net)

A simple, reliable fix is to stop building that message inside the property declaration and build it at runtime (for example, in __construct() or a static init). Example (different structure than the original post):

class Example {
    protected $errors;

    public function __construct() {
        $this->errors = array(
            1 => array(
                'code' => 1,
                'mesg' => sprintf(
                    'Error connecting to server: Please contact <a href="mailto:%s">System Administrator</a>',
                    constant('systemAdministrator')
                )
            ),
        );
    }
}

Using constant() or defined() in runtime code is safe and keeps the property initializer free of expressions. (php.net)

Other options: if you must keep static-style initialization, provide a literal default (null or an array of literals) and populate it in a static init method, or upgrade to a PHP version that supports constant scalar expressions (PHP 5.6+ adds more support for compile-time expressions). Also run a quick syntax check (php -l file.php) and isolate the file — parser errors sometimes point at the operator but the real problem is earlier in the file (missing semicolon, unclosed paren, BOM, etc.). (php.net)

Checklist: confirm whether $errors is a class property, move dynamic string building into a constructor or init routine, lint the file, and test under PHP 5.3 to reproduce. This will resolve the “unexpected '.'” symptom without changing the constant itself.

Member Avatar for Member #120589

So you've narrowed it down to this constant? If you take out:

' . systemAdministrator . '

you don't get an error. Is that right? I have my doubts. Sounds as if you have an error upstream.

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