Parse error: syntax error, unexpected '[' in line 169 [duplicate]

Answer 1

I believe you need PHP >= 5.4 for that:

explode(" ", $post_event)[0]

Try:

list($post_date, $post_time)   = explode(" ", $post_event);
list($junk, $junk2, $post_day) = explode("-", $post_date);

Answer 2

Just explode $post_event into it's own array and then act on that.

$post_event = get_post_meta($post_id, 'custom_event_date', true);
$post_dates = explode(" ", $post_event); 
$post_date = $post_dates[0];
$post_time = $post_dates[1];
$post_day = $post_dates[2];

Answer 3

From the PHP docs:

As of PHP 5.4 it is possible to array dereference the result of a function or method call directly. Before it was only possible using a temporary variable.

You are most likely using PHP 5.3 on the machine getting the error.

Answer 4

$post_date = explode(" ", $post_event)[0];

You're probably trying to use array dereferencing feature on a PHP version that doesn't support it. It's available only on PHP 5.4+ versions.

From the PHP manual:

As of PHP 5.4 it is possible to array dereference the result of a function or method call directly. Before it was only possible using a temporary variable.

As it says, you'll have to use a temporary variable on older versions of PHP:

$temp = explode(" ", $post_event);
$post_date = $temp[0];

Change all the occurences similarly.

Or, you could use list() to do it in one line (reduces readability a bit, though):

That is, you can replace:

$post_date = explode(" ", $post_event)[0];
$post_time = explode(" ", $post_event)[1];

with this:

list($post_date, $post_time) = explode(" ", $post_event);

However, using a temporary variable and manually assigning the values is more neater and readable.