Question

I am new to using PDO and I have no clue what is wrong with it. It says i have this error
Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_ENCAPSED_AND_WHITESPACE, expecting T_STRING or T_VARIABLE or T_NUM_STRING on line 3 Here is my code that goes along with it.

<?php
include 'dbconnect.php';
$sql = "INSERT INTO event (name,location,admission,map,additional,featured,description)    VALUES (:name,:location,:admission,:map,:additional,:featured,:description)";
$q = $conn->prepare($sql);
$q->execute(array(':name'=>$_POST['name'],
      ':location'=>$_POST['location'],
      ':admission'=>$_POST['addmission'],
      ':map'=>$_POST['map'],
      ':additional'=>$_POST['additional'],
      ':featured'=>$_POST['featured'],
      ':description'=>$_POST['description']));
?>

Answer 1

Remove the double quotes from all of these $_POST variables. There is no need to quote them, and indeed it causes harm if you also quote their array keys.

$name= $_POST['name'];
$location =  $_POST['location'];
$admission =    $_POST['admission'];
$map =   $_POST['map'];
$additional  =  $_POST['additional'];
$featured  =  $_POST['feature'];
$description =   $_POST['description'];

Inside a double-quoted string, if referencing array keys, you must not quote the keys, or surround the whole thing in {}. But neither is necessary here.

echo "In a double quoted string, you can use $array[keys] unquoted, or surround quoted {$array['keys']} in {}";
// But this is a syntax error! (like you are getting)
echo "Don't quote the $array['keys'] if inside a double quote string, not wrapped in {}";

In fact, there is no real need to assign them to variables at all. Just use the $_POST inputs directly in the execute() call.

$q->execute(array(':name'=>$_POST['name'],
          ':location'=>$_POST['location'],
          ':admission'=>$_POST['addmission'],
          ':map'=>$_POST['map'],
          ':additional'=>$_POST['additional'],
          ':featured'=>$_POST['featured'],
          ':description'=>$_POST['description']));