что такое parse error
Как исправить ошибку Syntax Error в WordPress
Вступление
Неопытного пользователя WordPress сообщение об ошибке Parse error: Syntax error, unexpected может изрядно напугать. Кажется всё идёт гладко и вдруг внезапно возникает эта ошибка. Бывает, что ошибка Parse error: Syntax error, unexpected возникла, но вы не можете увидеть это сообщение, потому что уведомление об ошибках в WordPress отключены. В этом случае, настоятельно вам рекомендуем включить отчёты об ошибках в WordPress (на англ.).
Ошибки такого рода возникают, если нарушены правила синтаксиса PHP. Здесь мы разберём, что делать, если вы столкнулись с ошибкой Syntax error и покажем вам, как исправить синтаксические ошибки в WordPress, выполняя простые инструкции понятные даже для начинающих.
Что понадобится
Прежде чем приступить к выполнению руководства, проверьте наличие:
Что такое ошибки синтаксиса s yntax error?
Итак, вам наверно интересно: Что же такое синтаксическая ошибка? В программировании синтаксические ошибки могут быть вызваны нарушением правил языка программирования. Аналогию можно провести с неправильным употребления падежей подлежащего и сказуемого в предложении в русском языке. Так же как читающий такое предложение человек с трудом поймёт его, так и компилятор или интерпретатор языка программирования не сможет выполнить блок кода с неверным синтаксисом. Не важно, вы пропустили точку с запятой или допустили более серьёзную ошибку, всё равно вы получите сообщение о наличии syntax error. Причиной синтаксической ошибкой в WordPress является ошибка в PHP-скрипте вашего сайта. Синтаксические ошибки попадают в широкую категорию ошибки разбора (parse errors), так как они возникают при разборе или парсинге каждой строки кода программы.
Устранение ошибки Syntax error в WordPress
Синтаксические ошибки в WordPress можно легко исправить. По существу, этот процесс состоит из двух шагов:
Давайте подробнее рассмотрим эти шаги.
Шаг 1 – Определение файла с ошибкой
Первый шаг в устранении синтаксической ошибки это поиск источника. Нужно найти файл, в котором возникла проблема и какой блок кода отвечает за ошибку.
Стоит обратить внимание на недавно установленные плагины или темы на ваш WordPress-сайт. Если синтаксическая ошибка начала появляеться сразу после установки этого плагина или темы, у вас уже готов ответ.
К счастью, даже если у вас нет идей о том, где же находится источник ошибки, вы легко можете найти её место появления. Когда вы открываете свой сайт в любом браузере, вы получаете сообщение об ошибке. Ошибка, которая начинается так: Parse error: Syntax error, ведёт вас к нужной информации об ошибке. Сообщения об ошибке также будет содержать путь к файлу, отвественному за неё и строку, где находится неверный код. В этот файл нужно внести изменения для устранения ошибки.
Давайте посмотрим на следующую ошибку синтаксиса в WordPress:
Из сообщения выше мы можем понять, что у нас не определён конец файла. Также мы может увидеть, какой файл повреждён (/home/u694443746/public_html/wp2/wp-content/themes/twentyseventeen/single.php) и строку кода (43), в которой произошла ошибка. Этой информации достаточно для исправления ошибки syntax error в WordPress.
Шаг 2 – Исправление файла через FTP-клиент
Исправление повреждённого файл очень простая процедура: просто подключитесь к вашему аккаунта при помощи FileZilla, теперь перейдите в директорию, где расположены файл с ошибкой и найдите нужный файл, в нашем примере это /home/u694443746/public_html/wp2/wp-content/themes/twentyseventeen/single.php, затем в контекстном меню, появляющемся по нажатию правой кнопки мыши, выберите опцию View/Edit (Просмотр/Редактирование).
Нужный файл будет открыт в текстовом редакторе.
Теперь у вас есть выбор: удалить код или внести необходимые изменения.
Простое удаление строки в некоторых случаях может помочь (например: комментарий, в котором пропущены экранирующие его символы), но может и вызвать другие проблеме, те, которых сейчас нет (например: строка, в которой идёт обработка значения переменной, которая используется ниже). Этот вариант не рекомендуем.
Теперь давайте более тщательно изучим наш файл с ошибкой. Мы уже знаем, где искать – из сообщения об ошибке мы видим, что это строка 43. Давайте посмотрим на код в этой строке:
Здесь вызывается функция get_footer и ничем не отличается от остальной части кода. Не совсем. Одно маленькое, но очень важное упущение – точка с запятой в конце строки. Это и вызывает ошибку Parse error: Syntax error.
В нашем примере ошибка легко исправляется добавлением точки с запятой в конце строки и загрузкой обновлённого файла на сервер. Если вы новичёк в PHP, воспользуйтесь чекером кода PHP, чтобы проверить код и посмотреть наиболее распространённые синтаксические ошибки PHP. Эти инструменты помогут вам сделать дебаг и исправить ошибку.
Заключение
Начинающим пользователям не стоит переживать по поводу возникшей ошибки Parse error: Syntax error в WordPress. Это одна из самых легко обнаруживаемых и исправляемых ошибок, с которыми вы можете встретится на вашем пути разработчика. Всё, что нужно сделать, это определить в каком файле возникла ошибка, найти строку или строки и исправить. Конечно, лучше всегда избегать синтаксических ошибок внимательно создавая код и тщательно его проверяя в отдельной среде, прежде чем добавлять (на англ.) его на свой сайт.
Елена имеет профессиональное техническое образование в области информационных технологий и опыт программирования на разных языках под разные платформы и системы. Более 10 лет посвятила сфере веб, работая с разными CMS, такими как: Drupal, Joomla, Magento и конечно же наиболее популярной в наши дни системой управления контентом – WordPress. Её статьи всегда технически выверены и точны, будь то обзор для WordPress или инструкции по настройке вашего VPS сервера.
PHP parse/syntax errors; and how to solve them
Everyone runs into syntax errors. Even experienced programmers make typos. For newcomers, it’s just part of the learning process. However, it’s often easy to interpret error messages such as:
The unexpected symbol isn’t always the real culprit. But the line number gives a rough idea of where to start looking.
Always look at the code context. The syntax mistake often hides in the mentioned or in previous code lines. Compare your code against syntax examples from the manual.
While not every case matches the other. Yet there are some general steps to solve syntax mistakes. This references summarized the common pitfalls:
Closely related references:
While Stack Overflow is also welcoming rookie coders, it’s mostly targetted at professional programming questions.
If your browser displays error messages such as «SyntaxError: illegal character», then it’s not actually php-related, but a javascript-syntax error.
Syntax errors raised on vendor code: Finally, consider that if the syntax error was not raised by editing your codebase, but after an external vendor package install or upgrade, it could be due to PHP version incompatibility, so check the vendor’s requirements against your platform setup.
20 Answers 20
What are the syntax errors?
PHP belongs to the C-style and imperative programming languages. It has rigid grammar rules, which it cannot recover from when encountering misplaced symbols or identifiers. It can’t guess your coding intentions.
Most important tips
There are a few basic precautions you can always take:
Use proper code indentation, or adopt any lofty coding style. Readability prevents irregularities.
Use an IDE or editor for PHP with syntax highlighting. Which also help with parentheses/bracket balancing.
Read the language reference and examples in the manual. Twice, to become somewhat proficient.
How to interpret parser errors
A typical syntax error message reads:
Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_STRING, expecting ‘ ; ‘ in file.php on line 217
Which lists the possible location of a syntax mistake. See the mentioned file name and line number.
A moniker such as T_STRING explains which symbol the parser/tokenizer couldn’t process finally. This isn’t necessarily the cause of the syntax mistake, however.
It’s important to look into previous code lines as well. Often syntax errors are just mishaps that happened earlier. The error line number is just where the parser conclusively gave up to process it all.
Solving syntax errors
There are many approaches to narrow down and fix syntax hiccups.
Open the mentioned source file. Look at the mentioned code line.
For runaway strings and misplaced operators, this is usually where you find the culprit.
Read the line left to right and imagine what each symbol does.
More regularly you need to look at preceding lines as well.
In particular, missing ; semicolons are missing at the previous line ends/statement. (At least from the stylistic viewpoint. )
If < code blocks >are incorrectly closed or nested, you may need to investigate even further up the source code. Use proper code indentation to simplify that.
Look at the syntax colorization!
Strings and variables and constants should all have different colors.
Operators +-*/. should be tinted distinct as well. Else they might be in the wrong context.
If you see string colorization extend too far or too short, then you have found an unescaped or missing closing » or ‘ string marker.
Whitespace is your friend. Follow any coding style.
Break up long lines temporarily.
You can freely add newlines between operators or constants and strings. The parser will then concretize the line number for parsing errors. Instead of looking at the very lengthy code, you can isolate the missing or misplaced syntax symbol.
Split up complex if statements into distinct or nested if conditions.
Instead of lengthy math formulas or logic chains, use temporary variables to simplify the code. (More readable = fewer errors.)
Add newlines between:
Partitioning up long code blocks really helps to locate the origin of syntax errors.
Comment out offending code.
If you can’t isolate the problem source, start to comment out (and thus temporarily remove) blocks of code.
As soon as you got rid of the parsing error, you have found the problem source. Look more closely there.
Sometimes you want to temporarily remove complete function/method blocks. (In case of unmatched curly braces and wrongly indented code.)
When you can’t resolve the syntax issue, try to rewrite the commented out sections from scratch.
As a newcomer, avoid some of the confusing syntax constructs.
PHP’s alternative syntax ( if: / elseif: / endif; ) is common for templates, but arguably less easy to follow than normal < code >blocks.
The most prevalent newcomer mistakes are:
Missing semicolons ; for terminating statements/lines.
Mismatched string quotes for » or ‘ and unescaped quotes within.
Don’t forget that solving one syntax problem can uncover the next.
If you make one issue go away, but other crops up in some code below, you’re mostly on the right path.
If after editing a new syntax error crops up in the same line, then your attempted change was possibly a failure. (Not always though.)
Restore a backup of previously working code, if you can’t fix it.
Invisible stray Unicode characters: In some cases, you need to use a hexeditor or different editor/viewer on your source. Some problems cannot be found just from looking at your code.
In particular BOMs, zero-width spaces, or non-breaking spaces, and smart quotes regularly can find their way into the source code.
Take care of which type of linebreaks are saved in files.
PHP just honors \n newlines, not \r carriage returns.
Which is occasionally an issue for MacOS users (even on OS X for misconfigured editors).
It often only surfaces as an issue when single-line // or # comments are used. Multiline /*. */ comments do seldom disturb the parser when linebreaks get ignored.
If your syntax error does not transmit over the web: It happens that you have a syntax error on your machine. But posting the very same file online does not exhibit it anymore. Which can only mean one of two things:
You are looking at the wrong file!
Or your code contained invisible stray Unicode (see above). You can easily find out: Just copy your code back from the web form into your text editor.
Check your PHP version. Not all syntax constructs are available on every server.
for the one invoked through the webserver.
Those aren’t necessarily the same. In particular when working with frameworks, you will them to match up.
Don’t use PHP’s reserved keywords as identifiers for functions/methods, classes or constants.
Trial-and-error is your last resort.
If all else fails, you can always google your error message. Syntax symbols aren’t as easy to search for (Stack Overflow itself is indexed by SymbolHound though). Therefore it may take looking through a few more pages before you find something relevant.
White screen of death
If your website is just blank, then typically a syntax error is the cause. Enable their display with:
Enabling it within the broken script is too late because PHP can’t even interpret/run the first line. A quick workaround is crafting a wrapper script, say test.php :
Then invoke the failing code by accessing this wrapper script.
It also helps to enable PHP’s error_log and look into your webserver’s error.log when a script crashes with HTTP 500 responses.
I think this topic is totally overdiscussed/overcomplicated. Using an IDE is THE way to go to completely avoid any syntax errors. I would even say that working without an IDE is kind of unprofessional. Why? Because modern IDEs check your syntax after every character you type. When you code and your entire line turns red, and a big warning notice shows you the exact type and the exact position of the syntax error, then there’s absolutely no need to search for another solution.
Using a syntax-checking IDE means:
You’ll (effectively) never run into syntax errors again, simply because you see them right as you type. Seriously.
Excellent IDEs with syntax check (all of them are available for Linux, Windows and Mac):
Unexpected [
Array function result dereferencing is likewise not available for older PHP versions:
Though, you’re always better off just upgrading your PHP installation. For shared webhosting plans, first research if e.g. SetHandler php56-fcgi can be used to enable a newer runtime.
BTW, there are also preprocessors and PHP 5.4 syntax down-converters if you’re really clingy with older + slower PHP versions.
Other causes for Unexpected [ syntax errors
If it’s not the PHP version mismatch, then it’s oftentimes a plain typo or newcomer syntax mistake:
Or trying to dereference constants (before PHP 5.6) as arrays:
At least PHP interprets that const as a constant name.
You are trying to use the global keyword on a member of an associative array. This is not valid syntax:
Unexpected ] closing square bracket
This is somewhat rarer, but there are also syntax accidents with the terminating array ] bracket.
Again mismatches with ) parentheses or > curly braces are common:
Or trying to end an array where there isn’t one:
Which often occurs in multi-line and nested array declarations.
If so, use your IDE for bracket matching to find any premature ] array closure. At the very least use more spacing and newlines to narrow it down.
Unexpected T_VARIABLE
Missing semicolon
It most commonly indicates a missing semicolon in the previous line. Variable assignments following a statement are a good indicator where to look:
String concatenation
Btw, you should prefer string interpolation (basic variables in double quotes) whenever that helps readability. Which avoids these syntax issues.
Missing expression operators
Of course the same issue can arise in other expressions, for instance arithmetic operations:
PHP can’t guess here if the variable should have been added, subtracted or compared etc.
Lists
Or functions parameter lists:
Equivalently do you see this with list or global statements, or when lacking a ; semicolon in a for loop.
Class declarations
This parser error also occurs in class declarations. You can only assign static constants, not expressions. Thus the parser complains about variables as assigned data:
Unmatched > closing curly braces can in particular lead here. If a method is terminated too early (use proper indentation!), then a stray variable is commonly misplaced into the class declaration body.
Variables after identifiers
You can also never have a variable follow an identifier directly:
Take in mind that using variable variables should be the exception. Newcomers often try to use them too casually, even when arrays would be simpler and more appropriate.
Missing parentheses after language constructs
Hasty typing may lead to forgotten opening or closing parenthesis for if and for and foreach statements:
Solution: add the missing opening ( between statement and variable.
Else does not expect conditions
Need brackets for closure
Invisible whitespace
As mentioned in the reference answer on «Invisible stray Unicode» (such as a non-breaking space), you might also see this error for unsuspecting code like:
It’s rather prevalent in the start of files and for copy-and-pasted code. Check with a hexeditor, if your code does not visually appear to contain a syntax issue.
See also
Unexpected T_CONSTANT_ENCAPSED_STRING
Unexpected T_ENCAPSED_AND_WHITESPACE
The unwieldy names T_CONSTANT_ENCAPSED_STRING and T_ENCAPSED_AND_WHITESPACE refer to quoted «string» literals.
They’re used in different contexts, but the syntax issue are quite similar. T_ENCAPSED… warnings occur in double quoted string context, while T_CONSTANT… strings are often astray in plain PHP expressions or statements.
Incorrect variable interpolation
And it comes up most frequently for incorrect PHP variable interpolation:
More precisely it’s valid to use PHP2-style simple syntax within double quotes for array references:
Nested arrays or deeper object references however require the complex curly string expression syntax:
If unsure, this is commonly safer to use. It’s often even considered more readable. And better IDEs actually use distinct syntax colorization for that.
Missing concatenation
If a string follows an expression, but lacks a concatenation or other operator, then you’ll see PHP complain about the string literal:
While it’s obvious to you and me, PHP just can’t guess that the string was meant to be appended there.
Confusing string quote enclosures
The same syntax error occurs when confounding string delimiters. A string started by a single ‘ or double » quote also ends with the same.
That example started with double quotes. But double quotes were also destined for the HTML attributes. The intended concatenation operator within however became interpreted as part of a second string in single quotes.
Tip: Set your editor/IDE to use slightly distinct colorization for single and double quoted strings. (It also helps with application logic to prefer e.g. double quoted strings for textual output, and single quoted strings only for constant-like values.)
This is a good example where you shouldn’t break out of double quotes in the first place. Instead just use proper \» escapes for the HTML attributes´ quotes:
While this can also lead to syntax confusion, all better IDEs/editors again help by colorizing the escaped quotes differently.
Missing opening quote
Equivalently are forgotten opening » / ‘ quotes a recipe for parser errors:
Here the ‘, ‘ would become a string literal after a bareword, when obviously login was meant to be a string parameter.
Array lists
Note that the last line may always contain an extra comma, but overlooking one in between is unforgivable. Which is hard to discover without syntax highlighting.
Function parameter lists
Runaway strings
A common variation are quite simply forgotten string terminators:
Here PHP complains about two string literals directly following each other. But the real cause is the unclosed previous string of course.
HEREDOC indentation
Prior PHP 7.3, the heredoc string end delimiter can’t be prefixed with spaces:
Solution: upgrade PHP or find a better hoster.
See also
Unexpected T_STRING
Misquoted strings
This syntax error is most common for misquoted string values however. Any unescaped and stray » or ‘ quote will form an invalid expression:
Another example is using PHP entry inside HTML code generated with PHP:
Unclosed strings
If you miss a closing » then a syntax error typically materializes later. An unterminated string will often consume a bit of code until the next intended string value:
It’s not just literal T_STRING s which the parser may protest then. Another frequent variation is an Unexpected ‘>’ for unquoted literal HTML.
Non-programming string quotes
If you copy and paste code from a blog or website, you sometimes end up with invalid code. Typographic quotes aren’t what PHP expects:
Typographic/smart quotes are Unicode symbols. PHP treats them as part of adjoining alphanumeric text. For example ”these is interpreted as a constant identifier. But any following text literal is then seen as a bareword/T_STRING by the parser.
The missing semicolon; again
If you have an unterminated expression in previous lines, then any following statement or language construct gets seen as raw identifier:
PHP just can’t know if you meant to run two functions after another, or if you meant to multiply their results, add them, compare them, or only run one || or the other.
Short open tags and headers in PHP scripts
This is rather uncommon. But if short_open_tags are enabled, then you can’t begin your PHP scripts with an XML declaration:
PHP will see the and reclaim it for itself. It won’t understand what the stray xml was meant for. It’ll get interpreted as constant. But the version will be seen as another literal/constant. And since the parser can’t make sense of two subsequent literals/values without an expression operator in between, that’ll be a parser failure.
Invisible Unicode characters
A most hideous cause for syntax errors are Unicode symbols, such as the non-breaking space. PHP allows Unicode characters as identifier names. If you get a T_STRING parser complaint for wholly unsuspicious code like:
You need to break out another text editor. Or an hexeditor even. What looks like plain spaces and newlines here, may contain invisible constants. Java-based IDEs are sometimes oblivious to an UTF-8 BOM mangled within, zero-width spaces, paragraph separators, etc. Try to reedit everything, remove whitespace and add normal spaces back in.
You can narrow it down with with adding redundant ; statement separators at each line start:
The extra ; semicolon here will convert the preceding invisible character into an undefined constant reference (expression as statement). Which in return makes PHP produce a helpful notice.
The `$` sign missing in front of variable names
Variables in PHP are represented by a dollar sign followed by the name of the variable.
This is a common error when the PHP code was «translated» from code written in another language (C, Java, JavaScript, etc.). In such cases, a declaration of the variable type (when the original code was written in a language that uses typed variables) could also sneak out and produce this error.
Escaped Quotation marks
If you use \ in a string, it has a special meaning. This is called an «Escape Character» and normally tells the parser to take the next character literally.
Example: echo ‘Jim said \’Hello\»; will print Jim said ‘hello’
If you escape the closing quote of a string, the closing quote will be taken literally and not as intended, i.e. as a printable quote as part of the string and not close the string. This will show as a parse error commonly after you open the next string or at the end of the script.
Typed properties
You need PHP ≥7.4 to use property typing such as: