Parsing error: solution eludes me.

[d'biann]

Hi guys,

Somewhere in this code:

$dbname = 'your databasename here...';
$dbhost = 'your databasehost here...';
$dbusername = 'your databaseusername here...';
$dbpassword = 'your database password here...';
function form($dbname,$dbhost,$dbusername,$dbpassword) {
echo "<form id='dblink_params' name='dblink_params' method='post' action='$_SERVER['PHP_SELF']'>
<fieldset>
         <legend>1). YOUR DATABASE RELATED PARAMETERS:</legend>
                 <label>Database name:</label><input type='text' size='20' name='dbname' value='$dbname'/>\n
                 <label>Database hostname:</label><input type='text' size='20' name='dbhost' value='$dbhost'/><\n
                 <label>Database username:</label><input type='text' size='20' name='dbusername' value='$dbusername'/>\n
                 <label>Database password:</label><input type='password' size='20' name='dbpassword' value='$dbpassword'/>\n
          <span><input type='submit' value='submit' name='submit'></span>
         </fieldset>
</form>";
} 

- something generates the following error:

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_ENCAPSED_AND_WHITESPACE, expecting T_STRING or T_VARIABLE or T_NUM_STRING in...

- and I cannot see what it is..

What's going wrong here? As far as I can see, this is a dynamic form done the way it's supposed to.

[d'biann]

Hmmm I tried backslashing the "$" sign in $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] out, and then the form displays. Why? How else am I supposed to do it?

[Dan Grossman]

Any of these ways would be valid:

echo "<form id='dblink_params' name='dblink_params' method='post' action='{$_SERVER['PHP_SELF']}'> ... 

echo "<form id='dblink_params' name='dblink_params' method='post' action='" . $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] . "'> ... 

//Omitting the single quotes outside a double-quoted string would be incorrect
echo "<form id='dblink_params' name='dblink_params' method='post' action='$_SERVER[PHP_SELF]'> ... 

See the PHP manual chapter on strings.

[medicjoe95]

Dan corrected you.

The problem is you have a ' inside of a '

action='$_SERVER['PHP_SELF']'>

So at the 'PHP, it thinks it is ending the action, so the HTML code is then action='$_SERVER[' and it is reading everything after that closing apostrophy as excess and thus unexpected text.

[d'biann]

Ah ok, thanks. I've jut gone from plain html forms in PHP to using dynamic forms and I guess it takes a little getting used to.

I need to adjust the four other variables within the label tags to make the default text display in these four fields as well then.

Thanks.