Question

Ordinarily, one would expect that the unexpected T_STRING implies a missing semicolon. However, in this case, where’s the semicolon missing from??

        global $lay;
        $yal = eval("return '$lay';");
        echo $yal . "\n";

The error is thrown in the eval, viz

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_STRING in ... BOGARIP.php(140) : eval()'d code on line 1

with $lay containing

$reportDate\t$heads['Account']\t$id\t$heads['Time zone']\t$heads['Campaign']\t$heads['Ad group']\t$heads['Network']\t$heads['Network (with search partners)']\t\t$heads['Ad group state']\t$heads['Campaign state']\t$heads['Impressions']\t$heads['Clicks']\t$heads['CTR']\t$heads['Avg. CPC']\t$heads['Avg. CPM']\t$heads['Cost']\t$heads['Avg. position']

Does this imply that the bug is actually in $lay or am I missing something else? Is this level of string substitution even possible?

Answer 1

Took @Evert’s advice and refactored. Now the format contains

%DATE%\t%Account%\t%ID%\t%Time zone%\t%Campaign%\t%Ad group%\t%Network%\t%Network (with search partners)%\t\t%Ad group state%\t%Campaign state%\t%Impressions%\t%Clicks%\t%CTR%\t%Avg. CPC%\t%Avg. CPM%\t%Cost%\t%Avg. position%

and the code

    $heads["ID"] = $id;
    $heads["DATE"] = $reportDate;

…

    global $lay;
    $layout = $lay;
    foreach ($heads as $key => $value) {
        $layout = str_replace("%" . $key . "%", $value, $layout);
    }
    $layout = str_replace("\\n", "\n", $layout);
    $layout = str_replace("\\t", "\t", $layout);