Posted by Tim Streater on 10/13/27 11:27

In article <Op-dndHn_I3w-67eRVn-gw@rogers.com>,
"Joseph Melnick" <jmelnick@jphp.com> wrote:

> Plato wrote:
> "plato" <platoTAKETHISOUT@telpacific.com.au> wrote in message
> news:43329cd6@news.rivernet.com.au...
> >
> > "Tim Streater" <tim.streater@dante.org.uk> wrote in message
> > news:tim.streater-3C69F9.12100522092005@individual.net...
> >> In article <433287e7@news.rivernet.com.au>,
> >> "plato" <platoTAKETHISOUT@telpacific.com.au> wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >> [trillions of copies of unnecessary stuff deleted]
> >>
> >> > I followed your advice and have created the table :courses and inserted
> > 2
> >> > fields course and places and populated them with course 1 and 11 places
> >> > (integer) and course 2 and 15 places (integer) running this script:
> >> >
> >> > <?PHP
> >> >
> >> > //alter you variables here
> >> > $host = "localhost";
> >> > $username="";
> >> > $password="";
> >> > $database="paul";
> >> >
> >> > // create link to database
> >> > $link = mysql_connect($host, $username, $password)
> >> > or die("Cannot connect to database");
> >> >
> >> > mysql_select_db($database)
> >> > or die("Cannot select database");
> >> >
> >> > //now we make the query which will ask the database for the course
> >> > information
> >> > //change the my_table to your course table name
> >> >
> >> > $query = "SELECT course,places FROM courses";
> >> > $result = mysql_query($query)
> >> > or die("Query cannot be executed");
> >> >
> >> > //now we are going to print the information to your screen
> >> > while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result, MYSQL_BOTH)) {
> >> > printf ("course: %s places: %s<br>", $row['course'],
> >> > $row['places']);
> >> > }
> >> > ?>
> >> >
> >> > Still getting this error:
> >> >
> >> > Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_VARIABLE in
> > c:\wamp\www\Untitled.php
> >> > on line 20
> >> >
> >> > but I can't see anything wrong with that line??
> >>
> >> There's nothing wrong syntactically with line 20. Its line 17 that's the
> >> problem. What's PHP supposed to do with the word "information" sitting
> >> there all by itself?
> >>
> >> -- tim
> >
> > You're a bloody genius Tim thanks
> >
> >
> Yes Tim,
>
> Good eye. It is always a good idea to wrap comments like so: /* My Comment
> */ certainly // My Comment is valid
> but breaks when words you intend to be a part of the comment flow to the
> next line ie when you accidently hit the return key and keep typing.
>
> It is definately good form to comment your code.
> Even better when comments do not cause bugs :)

Hmmm, I can't be arsed to use the /* */ construct, all my comments are
of the // variety. I am just used to the fact that languages of this
type have problems reporting errors accurately (perhaps because it's
parsed in a single pass? I don't know. Note that it gives up at the
first error). In some cases the error can be hundreds of lines away,
although in a case like this I would say the code needs restructuring as
well as simply fixing.

If the offending line looks OK, make a copy of your program file and
start removing chunks until PHP doesn't complain ay more. This may help
pin down the problem. Bit of a brute force approach perhaps but
necessary sometimes.

-- tim

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