Does anyone know the meaning behind this php error message?

Question

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_ENCAPSED_AND_WHITESPACE, expecting T_STRING or T_VARIABLE or T_NUM_STRING is the message. It came up from this line of code:

<         


        

Answer 1

For interpolation of one-dimensional array values into strings, use this syntax:

"foo = $_POST[bar]"

Notice no quotes.

For interpolating nested arrays or generally using the normal syntax, use braces:

"foo = {$_POST['bar']}"

In no case though do any of this with SQL queries, you need to escape values before plugging them into queries. So, do this:

$query = sprintf('SELECT foo FROM bar WHERE baz = "%s"',
                 mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['baz']));