XML causes PHP parse error

greenpig · #1 (**permalink**) 08-06-08, 10:30 PM

Hi, I'm new to this site and relatively new to PHP, so my apologies if this has been answered before (a quick search of the forum didn't turn up anything).

I code my web pages in XHTML and they all start:

HTML Code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">

I want to parse these pages for PHP, but when I do the first of these lines throws up an "unexpected T_STRING" parse error. A look at phpinfo() showed me that "short_open_tag=on" by default on my hosting service. So I created a custom php.ini file that sets short_open_tag=off, and now phpinfo() confirms that short tags are off. However I'm still getting the same parser error:

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_STRING in [URL] on line 1

I know it is possible to work around this problem by wrapping the offending line in a <?php echo ... ?> command, but this breaks the syntax checker in BBEdit, where I do my coding. Does anyone have any ideas what else might be causing the parser to choke on this line?

Thanks!

axilant · #2 (**permalink**) 08-08-08, 10:07 PM

PHP Code:


			
<?PHP echo "<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"utf-8\"?>"; ?>

replace your first line with that

I understand that you are concerned about bbedit, it sounds like it is broken anyways if it doesn't parse correctly.

If you can, link me your php info and ill take a look

greenpig · #3 (**permalink**) 08-08-08, 10:17 PM

Thanks, but as I said in my post I'm aware of this solution. Unfortunately it breaks the syntax checker in my code editor. I really want to understand why I'm getting the error in the first place without having to resort to workarounds.

greenpig · #4 (**permalink**) 08-08-08, 11:02 PM

The problem with BBedit is that when it's checking HTML syntax it expects the first line to be either a DOCTYPE or "<?xml... ?>. In the absence of either of these, it defaults to assuming the code is HTML 4.01 Transitional, and then it finds errors with my XHTML code. I agree this is kind of clumsy, but the program is great in all the other respects that matter to me, so I'd like to find a solution to the problem that won't conflict with it.

PHP info is on this page. Thanks for taking a look!

<?Wille?> · #5 (**permalink**) 08-13-08, 03:02 AM

Did you restart apache after editing the ini?

greenpig · #6 (**permalink**) 08-21-08, 02:23 PM

Well, it isn't my Apache to restart -- it's my hosting provider's. Do I need to restart? Again, the odd thing is that phpinfo() shows that short_open_tag=off, so it seems to be reading my .ini file. But it doesn't solve my problem!

greenpig · #7 (**permalink**) 08-21-08, 02:54 PM

A stupid error on my part: I'd stuck the line

Code:

AddHandler php-cgi .php

in my .htaccess, but I neglected to add .html. So my .php file that ran phpinfo() worked, and my .html files didn't. Duh.